No relief to Saini till Monday as Mohali court reserves order on anticipatory bail plea

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, May 9

The district courts here on Saturday reserved the order on former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini’s anticipatory bail application till Monday.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Monika Goyal after hearing the arguments from the petitioner as well as the complainant for about one-and-a-half-hours reserved the order thus denying any relief to Saini till Monday in a fresh FIR registered against him at a Mohali police station in a 29-year-old case.

Counsel APS Deol appearing for Sumedh Singh Saini argued that the FIR registered in the matter after 29 years was not maintainable.

He said the case registered in the same case has already been dismissed by the apex court in 2011 and added that there was nothing substantial against his Saini. He said there was bar on maintainability of the case filed twice and added that CBI had registered the case under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abduction in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to exhort confession) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and now a fresh case had been filed in the police station at Mohali in a hush-hush manner. 

He said the only thing with the prosecution was a report of ‘Outlook’ magazine in December 2015.

Pardeep Virk, counsel appearing for Palwinder Singh Multani, complainant in the 29-year-old case, argued that Supreme Court while quashing the FIR registered by the CBI about 9 years ago had made it clear that recourse to fresh proceedings could be taken to, if permissible in law. 

He said for fresh investigation the custodial interrogation of Saini was must as two investigating officers have already died. He added everybody knew how Saini intimidated judges not only of the lower courts but also of higher courts to turn the case in his favour. Virk said even UN Human Rights Council had slammed the then state government  in 2013  by stating that security officers who committed human rights violations were frequently promoted rather than brought to justice. He said despite curfew in Punjab and lockdown in other states Saini continued to travel without any fear of law. The recent refusal of the Himachal government not allowing him to enter the state was fine example of this, he added.

District Attorney Sanjit Batra while filing reply on behalf of the state police opposed the interim bail to the former DGP. He had stated that for fresh investigation the custodial interrogation of Saini was must as two investigating officers have already died.

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