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HIGH COURT
DC pulled up for irregularities
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 1
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today came down heavily on Ambala’s Deputy Commissioner and Additional Deputy Commissioner for ordering the release of vehicles, taken into custody under the Police Act, on supardari to “persons having no concern with them”. Delivering the verdict on public interest litigation filed by High Court advocate Surender Deshwal, Mr Justice V.M. Jain ruled: “Irregularities and illegalities have been committed in ordering the release of the vehicles on superdari to persons other than the owners and some vehicles have also been assigned new numbers.... Instead of complying with the provisions of Section 26 of the Police Act and disposing of the vehicles in accordance with law, the DC and the ADC ordered their release on superdari to persons having no concern with those vehicles. Furthermore, the Sub Divisional Magistrate, without any authority of law, proceeded to assign new registration numbers to those vehicles on supardari. The action of the SDM in this regard has to be condemned”. Mr Justice Jain further ruled: “Similarly, the action of the DC and the ADC in ordering the release of vehicles on supardari is also not in accordance with law. Mere past practice in some district in the state of Haryana in this regard would not legalise the action of the DC and the ADC in ordering the release of the vehicles on supardari”.
File case against
Inspector, SSP told
Directing the suspension of a Punjab Police Inspector accused of thrashing a Barnala district resident accompanying a warrant officer during a raid on a police post in search of his missing brothers, Mr Justice V.M. Jain of the High Court today directed Barnala’s Senior Superintendent of Police to get a criminal case registered on the basis of the officer’s report, along with another fact finding report submitted by Haryana’s District and Sessions Judge (Vigilance). Mr Justice Jain also directed that all necessary papers, immediately after the registration of the first information report, should be handed over to a CBI Deputy Inspector-General for a probe. The DIG would nominate an officer, not below the Inspector’s rank, for investigating the case within three months of receiving a copy of the order, the Judge ruled. Warrant officer M.S. Gill had stated that the Inspector, furious over the fact that the petitioner was searching the police post after bring along with him a warrant officer, had attacked the petitioner. The
Judge, in his report, had added that the Inspector had threatened the warrant officer with a view to intimidate him and it was under his orders that the officer was made to sit in a room and was given a blow on the petitioner’s face. The petitioner had claimed that his brothers were picked up by the Inspector, along with other cops, on October 3, before being illegally detained in police stations. Their whereabouts were still unknown.
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