Punjab and Haryana High Court orders CBI probe into woman’s ‘custodial death’

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 19

Nearly seven years after the alleged ‘custodial death’ of a woman, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered a CBI probe. The direction came as Justice Pankaj Jain asserted that a special investigation team (SIT) constituted on the court orders, ignored vital questions necessary for a fair investigation.

Taking up the matter, Justice Jain directed that the investigation would be carried out and completed by the investigation agency “as early as possible, preferably within three months” from receiving the order’s certified copy.

He also stayed the trial in the case registered initially for causing death by negligence on June 13, 2019, under Section 304-A of the IPC at Dugri police station in Ludhiana district. The stay order would remain in operation till the supplementary report’s filing by the CBI.

Justice Jain was hearing a petition filed by Mukul Garg for directions to the CBI to re-investigate Ramandeep Kaur’s ‘custodial death’. The Bench was told that the petitioner and his fiancée Ramandeep were illegally picked on August 3, 2017, by the police while investigating a cheating and theft case. Ramandeep died during interrogation, he alleged.

Among other things, Justice Jain asserted that the issue that caught the court’s attention was ‘hesitation cut marks’ on both wrists and recovery of a knife from her undergarments, which was handed over to ASI Sukhdev Singh, but ‘conspicuously misplaced by him’. Justice Jain added that the SIT recorded that the lady constables on duty had no satisfactory reply as to how and from where the knife came in her possession while in police custody and all police officials feigned ignorance regarding the cut marks on the wrists.

“The SIT was constituted on the orders of this court. The report suggests that the SIT fumbled somewhere. Its report is discrepant on the vital link regarding the deceased coming in possession of the knife and then its disappearance from the whole investigation after having been handed over by the doctors, who conducted the post-mortem examination, to Sukhdev Singh, the police official,” Justice Jain asserted.

Was picked up by cops in august, 2017

The Bench was told that the petitioner and his fiancée Ramandeep were illegally picked up on August 3, 2017, by the police while investigating a cheating and theft case. Ramandeep died during interrogation.

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#Central Bureau of Investigation CBI #Custodial Death #human rights