FAKE ED OFFICERS: Trial court order rejecting police remand of accused set aside

Tribune News Service

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh , January 29

The court of Additional Sessions Judge Narender has set aside an order of the trial court, which declined an application of the UT police for allowing them the remand of an accused in a cheating case.

The police had sought remand of Alamjeet Singh, alias Jordan, arrested in a case where his co-accused used to allegedly impersonate as an officer of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the respondent-accused allegedly used to provide him the list of officers.

While allowing the revision petition of the Chandigarh Police, the Additional Sessions Judge directed the trial court to reconsider the application seeking the police remand of the accused and pass a fresh order on hearing the parties. The court further directed the parties to appear before the trial court on January 31.

The trial court had rejected the police application on January 22 when the accused was produced before it and sent him to judicial custody.

The police had arrested the accused in a case registered at the Sector 19 police station on January 19. The FIR was registered on a complaint of Ajay Singh, Deputy Director, ED. The complainant had alleged that two persons, namely Girish Tyagi and Jitender Kumar, were impersonating as ED officials. He stated that no such persons were posted in the ED office. He had stated that these persons might cheat gullible persons.

The police alleged that the accused even rang up Punjab’s Deputy Chief Minister, AAP and BSP leaders and some IPS officers and threatened them that the ED had received complaints against them.

Atul Sethi, Additional Public Prosecutor, argued that the impugned order passed by the trial court on January 22 was liable to be set aside. He stated that the police had prima facie shown to the trial court that the co-accused, Taranjit Singh, alias Girish Tyagi, used to impersonate as an ED officer and the respondent-accused used to provide him a list of various officers. The accused had also even transferred an amount of Rs20,000 to the account of the co-accused. Sethi said these facts were not appreciated by the trial court while passing the impugned order. He said the custodial interrogation of the accused was required in order to unearth his involvement in the case.

The counsel for the accused argued that the order of the trial court did not require any kind of interference as it was rightly and legally passed.

After hearing the arguments, Additional Sessions Judge Narender said in the circumstances, where custodial interrogation of the respondent was required by the investigating agency to bring out the truth, the agency should be provided an opportunity to do so.

“It is a settled law that during the period of the first remand of the accused, it can be changed from police remand to judicial remand and vice-versa. The impugned order is, thus, set aside only up to the extent related to the application of police custody of the respondent and the trial court is directed to reconsider the application seeking police remand of the respondent in the light of above observations of this court and pass a fresh order upon hearing the parties,” read the order.

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