HC questions UT over pace of probe into IPS officer's suicide

Taking note that more than a month had passed since senior IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar “allegedly died by suicide”, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today questioned the Chandigarh Administration on the stage and progress of the investigation into the case.

“What is the latest position? Where has the investigation reached? Has it reached anywhere?” Chief Justice Sheel Nagu asked the UT counsel while hearing a public interest petition seeking a CBI probe into the matter.

Questioning the necessity of a plea seeking a CBI probe into the alleged suicide, the Bench also asked the PIL petitioner to establish how the case satisfied the Supreme Court’s parameters for transferring an investigation to an independent agency.

Taking up the public interest petition filed through advocate Navneet Kumar, the Bench also observed that the grounds raised in the petition were “extremely omnibus in nature and very generic.”

The Bench during the hearing of the matter, pointedly asked the counsel to demonstrate whether the matter met the exceptional conditions laid down by the apex court for such transfers. Appearing for the petitioner, the counsel contended that the officer’s death had “shaken the conscience of society,” adding that if a senior police officer was not safe, “then what about the common man.” He urged that the investigation be handed over to a central agency after submitting that one of the officials named in the FIR was currently heading a district in the Tri-City region.

The Bench, however, noted that the case was not being probed by the same police unit but by another organization. The petitioner, on the other hand, maintained that “none of the 12-13 accused named in the FIR” had been joined in the investigation so far.

The counsel appearing for Chandigarh Administration, meanwhile, informed the court that an SIT headed by IPS officer Pushpendra Kumar had been constituted on October 10 — three days after the incident on October 7 and a day after the registration of an FIR in the matter — and that the probe was underway. He pointed out that “there was not even a whisper of allegation against the UT Police” in the petition and that such requests for transfer of investigation were to be entertained only in “exceptional and rarest of circumstances.”

The Bench granted the UT counsel time till day after tomorrow to apprise the court of the present stage of investigation and listed the matter for further hearing accordingly.