Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge recuses from hearing Sumedh Saini’s petition

Chandigarh, September 2

Punjab’s former Director-General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini could not get any relief from the Punjab and Haryana High Court today in the kidnapping and murder case. His petition for declaring the probe to be “non est” and in violation of the Supreme Court order could not make any headway after Justice Amol Rattan Singh recused himself from hearing the matter.

Saini’s anticipatory bail petition, filed today, is yet to come up for hearing. As the civil writ petition filed by Saini came up for hearing, Justice Amol Rattan Singh asserted that the matter be put up before another Bench after obtaining appropriate orders from the Chief Justice.

“It is to be noticed here that the counsel for the petitioner has sought an early date. Consequently, the matter be put up before the Chief Justice immediately for assigning it to another Bench,” Justice Amol Rattan Singh added.

Special Public Prosecutor SS Narula and CBI counsel Sumit Goel were present during the hearing. Punjab was represented by senior advocate Harin P Rawal, advocate Karan Bharihoke, along with state law officers Anusha Nagarajan and Diya Sodhi.

In his anticipatory bail application running into more than 280 pages, Saini submitted that the court of Mohali Additional Sessions Judge Monika Goyal initially granted bail to the petitioner. Four more police officers were subsequently granted bail and the nature of allegations were considered in both orders.

But Mohali Additional Sessions Judge Rajnish Garg, while deciding the application for bail after addition of murder offence under Section 302 of the IPC, reviewed the finding as well as the observations recorded by Judge Monika Goyal in her earlier order dated May 11 on every count.

This, his counsel HS Deol submitted, was impermissible in law. He submitted the only reason given by the presiding officer was that the present bail application has been “filed after addition of offence under Section 302 of the IPC as certain more evidence has been collected by the investigating agency”. — TNS