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SC quashes CBI case against Saini
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

In A nutshell

It all started when the cavalcade of Sumedh Singh Saini, then SP, Chandigarh Police, was attacked in August 1991.
Saini and his team of officers allegedly picked up suspects to unearth the plot
Among the suspects booked was Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar. The cops allegedly took his uncle and father into custody. In the meantime, an Additional Sessions Judge acquitted Bhullar and at least two others
As UT challenged the acquittal orders, the High Court noticed some accused had been declared POs and asked the UT to give details of the steps taken to procure their presence.
The HC put the CBI on notice and asked it to track down the POs.
During the case hearing, a former IAS officer approached the court alleging that his son Balwant Singh Multani had been eliminated
On death row in another case, Bhullar also moved the HC, alleging elimination of his father and uncle
Bhullar sought permission to hand over evidence to the court in connection with the alleged elimination of accused Multani, Navneet Singh and Manjit Singh.
Indicting Saini for his alleged involvement in the torture of Multani and Bhullar, the CBI registered a case of adduction and illegal detention and other offences against him and three more police officers.

— Saurabh Malik

New Delhi, December 7
The Supreme Court today quashed the CBI case against Punjab’s Vigilance Bureau chief Sumedh Singh Saini for the “elimination” of three persons in 1991, including Balwant Singh Bhullar and Manjit Singh, father and maternal uncle, respectively, of death row convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar.

A Bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and AK Patnaik also set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order asking the CBI to register a case against Saini and other police officials, holding that it was biased.

The SC gave its ruling on appeals filed by the Punjab Government as well as Saini, challenging the HC orders.

Balwant, son of retired IAS official Darshan Singh Multani, was the third person who was allegedly eliminated at the instance of Saini, who was SSP, Chandigarh Police, in 1991. Balwant and Bhullar were both accused in a case related to the assassination bid on Saini on August 29, 1991, in which three security personnel were killed.

Though Bhullar was acquitted in the case, he was sentenced to death for masterminding the 1991 bomb attack on the then Youth Congress chief MS Bitta.

Saini had challenged the HC orders passed in 2007, contending that the HC had passed these by reopening a case on petitions filed by Multani and Bhullar (who sent his petition from the Tihar Jail in Delhi).

The HC could not have entertained the petitions 16 years after the alleged incidents had taken place, the state and Saini had argued. The other police officials against whom the CBI had registered a case on the HC orders were Baldev Singh (who in 1991 was SP, Operations, Chandigarh) and SI Jagir Singh and SI Harsahay Sharma.

The petitioners had argued that the Chandigarh administration had ordered a magisterial inquiry on Multani’s allegations that his son had been illegally picked up from Mohali. No police officer was indicted in the inquiry.

Multani had then filed a criminal writ petition in 1991, praying that his son be produced before the court, which was dismissed.