Assault on Colonel: High court hands over probe to Chandigarh Police
Chandigarh DGP told to constitute a special investigation team within a week and the SIT would complete the probe in four months.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday transferred the investigation into the recent assault on Colonel Pushpinder Singh Bath, allegedly by 12 Punjab Police personnel in Patiala, to Chandigarh Police.
The high court bench of justice HS Brar ordered that the Chandigarh director general of police (DGP) would constitute a special investigation team within a week and the SIT would complete the probe in four months.
The detailed order is awaited.
In his petition, Colonel Bath had stated that he and his son were brutally attacked by four inspector-rank officers of Punjab Police and their armed subordinates, who snatched his identity card and mobile phone, and threatened him with a “fake encounter” over a parking dispute outside an eatery in Patiala on the intervening night of March 13 and 14.
The plea alleged that the colonel’s wife, Jaswinder Kaur, was pressured by the policemen to strike a compromise and claimed that some personnel admitted to her over a video call that they were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident.
Despite the petitioner and his family being the first ones to report the incident, the FIR was first registered on March 14 on the basis of the statement of the eatery owner and a fresh FIR was registered on the colonel’s statement on March 22.
Earlier, on two occasions, the case was heard by the bench of justice Sandeep Moudgil but on Thursday, it got delisted from his bench and was listed before the bench of justice HS Brar. The reasons for delisting were not immediately clear.
During the two previous hearings, the bench of justice Moudgil had come down heavily on the Punjab government and questioned the police on the delay in registration of an FIR and non-arrest of the accused police personnel.
As the hearing before the bench of justice Brar resumed on Thursday morning, it asked Punjab whether it wanted the matter to be handed over to the CBI, Chandigarh Police or the SIT. It also asked whether parties wanted an order on merit or a consensus order. Later, it ordered that Chandigarh Police would probe the case.
