Pay Rs 50k relief to Ambala resident: Panel to govt

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 24

The Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) on Wednesday recommended the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 to a resident of Ambala for the violation of human rights as the police conducted a biased investigation and registered an FIR against him despite the fact that earlier six inquires had concluded that it was a civil dispute.

An HHRC Bench, comprising Chairperson Justice SK Mittal (retd) and member Justice KC Puri (retd), observed that there is a serious lapse on the part of ASI Surinder Kumar as he conducted a biased investigation and hid the previous litigations between the parties in order to help the other side.

The Bench added that the state government is entitled “to recover the compensation from the salary of ASI Surinder Kumar, if so desires”, and directed to forward the order to the Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Haryana, for compliance within two months.

Complainant Ashish Jain had approached the commission in 2019 against an FIR for cheating and criminal breach of trust against him in 2018. He has a property dispute with Harbans Singh (now deceased). Jain had filed two civil suits for specific performance, which are pending, while Harbans Singh had filed a civil suit in 2018 for the cancellation of agreements in favour of Jain.

The commission said that when nothing came on record in six inquiries on the ground that the matter was of civil nature then how the present case had been registered on the seventh complaint.

The commission observed that in view of its earlier order dated August 28, 2019, the Ambala SP had constituted the SIT, but it seemed “to have not gone through the record of the case and simply stated that since the challan has been presented and as such, no further action is required”.