Pal­winder Singh Mul­tani com­plained to a Mo­hali po­lice on 6 May 2020 for reg­is­ter­ing a case in the in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance of his brother Bal­want Singh Mul­tani -a friend of then miss­ing Davin­der­pal Singh Bhullar and son of a serv­ing IAS of­fi­cer D. S. Mul­tani, 29 years ago on 11 De­cem­ber 1991. Pun­jab Po­lice reg­is­tered the FIR on 8 May 2020 and on 11 May 2020, Ad­di­tional Ses­sions Judge Monika Goyal granted bail to the high-pro­file ac­cused -for­mer Di­rec­tor-Gen­eral of the Pun­jab Po­lice Sumedh Saini. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh pre­sents an analy­sis of the turn of events and ex­am­ines the pos­si­bil­ity of Saini fac­ing a full trial in the case.

SAHIBZADA AJIT SINGH NA­GAR -MO­HALI AD­DI­TIONAL SES­SIONS JUDGE  MONIKA GOYAL granted bail to Sumedh Singh Saini, cit­ing the COVID-19 pan­demic and ob­serv­ing that the al­le­ga­tions him are se­ri­ous but she would con­cen­trate on the bail plea and not the mer­its of the case. In her 34-page or­der, she made re­marks of po­lit­i­cal vendetta against the Amarinder Singh gov­ern­ment.

The FIR against Saini al­leged ab­duc­tion of Bal­want Singh Mul­tani, in­hu­man tor­ture, foist­ing of false cases and sub­se­quent in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance. Hu­man Rights de­fend­ers have chron­i­cled many more cases of abuse against Saini dur­ing his polic­ing ca­reer.

 

“In­di­a’s laws and le­gal sys­tems favour the rich and the pow­er­ful.”

Jus­tice Deepak Gupta, Supreme Court of In­dia, dur­ing his vir­tual farewell

Com­ment­ing on the bail granted to Saini, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh said, “The case re­minds me of the ar­rest of for­mer Pun­jab DGP SS Virk, de­tained in Delhi, brought to Chandi­garh by then Pun­jab CM Parkash Singh Badal in Sep­tem­ber 2007, taken to PGI and the mag­is­trate go­ing to the hos­pi­tal to in­car­cer­ate him there in ju­di­cial cus­tody, till he was granted bail from the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court. He did not spend a sin­gle minute in any po­lice sta­tion nor was he taken to court!”

Ad­mit­tedly, when a politi­cian like Jagdish Tytler is tried for his al­leged role in the killing of Sikhs in No­vem­ber 1984 or when the role and com­plic­ity of a for­mer po­lice chief like Sumedh Singh Saini are un­der the scan­ner in a case of in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance, the pas­sage of three decades pre­sents unique prob­lems and chal­lenges. Doubts, po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vres, ju­di­cial wran­gling, un­avail­abil­ity of wit­nesses -all be­come con­tentious is­sues.

“The case re­minds me of the ar­rest of for­mer Pun­jab DGP SS Virk, de­tained in Delhi, brought to Chandi­garh by then Pun­jab CM Parkash Singh Badal in Sep­tem­ber 2007, taken to VIP room of the PGI and the mag­is­trate go­ing to the hos­pi­tal to in­car­cer­ate him there in ju­di­cial cus­tody, till he was granted bail from the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court. He did not spend a sin­gle minute in any po­lice sta­tion nor was he taken to court!” 

Kan­warpal Singh, Spokesper­son Dal Khalsa

Ses­sions Judge Monika Goyal has strongly ques­tioned the de­lay in the fil­ing of the com­plaint and has com­mented that “There is no doubt that al­le­ga­tion made per­tains to a heinous crime, but as re­gards de­lay, the only ex­pla­na­tion given by the Pros­e­cut­ing Agency as well as the com­plainant is that the pre­sent ap­pli­cant was Di­rec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice of the State of Pun­jab and was very in­flu­en­tial due to which they could not take any ac­tion against him.”

“There is no doubt that al­le­ga­tion made per­tains to a heinous crime….”

Monika Goyal, Ses­sions Judge Mo­hali

She has elab­o­rated say­ing, “no ex­pla­na­tion is com­ing as to why the pre­sent com­plainant had kept mum for such a long time es­pe­cially af­ter June 2018 and had cho­sen this time i.e. Out­break of COVID-19 when the whole of the State of Pun­jab is un­der Cur­few and had trav­elled all way from Ja­land­har dur­ing this time to do an act of lodg­ing the FIR in 29 years old case.”

While this judge has ques­tioned the in­ten­tion of the com­plainant to travel to Chandi­garh to make a com­plaint, how can the Delhi state ma­chin­ery ex­plain the role of its po­lice not do­ing reg­u­lar polic­ing in such dif­fi­cult times and go­ing af­ter Mus­lim youth who protested against the CAA?

The Ses­sions Judge has also re­marked that “it is rel­e­vant to men­tion that Out­look Mag­a­zine had car­ried this is­sue on 14.12.2015 but the pre­sent com­plainant had not taken any ac­tion till 6.5.2020, es­pe­cially when the pre­sent ap­pli­cant had al­ready re­tired in June 2018. The only ex­pla­na­tion given by coun­sel is that the pre­sent com­plainant was busy in col­lect­ing de­tails of elim­i­na­tion of his brother, but a pe­rusal of the FIR shows that he is mainly re­ly­ing upon the dis­clo­sure made by Gurmeet Singh alias Pinki.”

“Clearly, from Julius Ribeiro to KPS Gill to SS Virk to Sumedh Saini -they are all in­stru­ments of state and they did what they did be­cause they en­joyed the full im­punity of the state. They may have fallen on the way­side of the gov­ern­ment for some time, but the state will go all out to pro­tect them.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, Spokesper­son Dal Khalsa

Agree­ing with the pros­e­cu­tion as to the sever­ity of the case, the judge goes on to add, “whether an of­fence has been com­mit­ted is a mat­ter of ev­i­dence, but still tim­ing cho­sen by the com­plainant to ap­pear at this time of high-dis­tress raises se­ri­ous doubt in the mind of this Court.”

In the case which has ex­cited the peo­ple of Pun­jab and many Pan­thic ac­tivists had held it as a fore­gone con­clu­sion that Saini will not be ar­rested and would be let off on bail, Saini was rep­re­sented by Ad­vo­cates APS Deol, H.S Dhanoa and Harneet Singh Oberoi while the Pun­jab state had Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor San­jiv Ba­tra, Ad­di­tional PP Man­jit Singh and com­plainant Pal­winder Singh Mul­tani’s coun­sel was Pardeep Virk.

While this judge has ques­tioned the in­ten­tion of the com­plainant to travel to Chandi­garh to make a com­plaint, how can the Delhi state ma­chin­ery ex­plain the role of its po­lice not do­ing reg­u­lar polic­ing in such dif­fi­cult times and go­ing af­ter Mus­lim youth who protested against the CAA?

Trans­gress­ing the case de­tails, the judge re­marks that, “There are so many things to han­dle such as the pa­tients of COVID-19, per­sons who are stranded in an­other States and mi­grant labourer stranded in the state of Pun­jab, but de­spite be­ing busy, the State of Pun­jab had hastily lodged the pre­sent FIR in 29 years old case when al­ready the mat­ter had once at­tained fi­nal­ity by or­ders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

In yet an­other ob­ser­va­tion, the judge says, “it is clear that there are se­ri­ous doubts re­gard­ing the main­tain­abil­ity of the pre­sent FIR at this junc­ture and chances are that it is an out­come of po­lit­i­cal vendetta as the pre­sent ap­pli­cant was in­stru­men­tal in lodg­ing FIRs against high ups, …”

The judge has also raised doubts about ‘the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Po­lice Sta­tion Mataur in Mo­hali in the pre­sent case.’ She fur­ther says, “More­over (the) tim­ing of lodg­ing FIR raises a fin­ger to­wards (the) vin­dic­tive na­ture of the pros­e­cu­tion.”

“it is clear that there are se­ri­ous doubts re­gard­ing the main­tain­abil­ity of the pre­sent FIR at this junc­ture and chances are that it is an out­come of po­lit­i­cal vendetta as the pre­sent ap­pli­cant was in­stru­men­tal in lodg­ing FIRs against high ups, …”

Monika Goyal, Ses­sions Judge, Mo­hali

Such ob­ser­va­tions go be­yond the realm of the law text­book. It is a di­rect at­tack on the of­fice of the Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter sug­gest­ing po­lit­i­cal vendetta. The Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab and his Ad­vo­cate Gen­eral must an­swer this in court, to the peo­ple of Pun­jab and es­pe­cially to fam­i­lies of hu­man rights abuse vic­tims.

“All the fan­fare and brouhaha of ar­rest­ing Saini died down once he got bail. The Amarinder Singh gov­ern­ment is on a test to see whether the cases of Kotka­pura and Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing are in­sti­tuted now or not,” noted Kan­warpal Singh while speak­ing to WSN.

In the bail or­der, the for­mer Pun­jab Po­lice Chief Sumedh Saini has been di­rected to join in­ves­ti­ga­tion within 7 days of the or­der and co­op­er­ate with the In­ves­ti­gat­ing Of­fi­cer. As it was sus­pected that he at­tempted to flee to his abode in Hi­machal Pradesh in the dead of the night af­ter he got wind of the FIR, he has also been or­dered to stay put at home dur­ing the lock­down and to sur­ren­der his pass­port and not to leave the coun­try with­out court per­mis­sion. The or­der also tells him that he shall not make any threat or in­duce­ment to in­flu­ence wit­nesses.

The Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab and his Ad­vo­cate Gen­eral must an­swer hints of po­lit­i­cal vendetta in Saini’s bail or­der to the peo­ple of Pun­jab, es­pe­cially to fam­i­lies of hu­man rights abuse vic­tims.

Re­act­ing sharply to the en­tire drama un­fold­ing in the last few days, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh re­marked, “Clearly, from Julius Ribeiro to KPS Gill to SS Virk to Sumedh Saini -they are all in­stru­ments of state and they did what they did be­cause they en­joyed the full im­punity of the state. They may have fallen on the way­side of the gov­ern­ment for some time, but the state will go all out to pro­tect them.”

To wit, In­dian Supreme Court’s Jus­tice Deepak Gupta dur­ing his vir­tual farewell last week said, “In­di­a’s laws and le­gal sys­tems favour the rich and the pow­er­ful.”