Haryana: Law officer claims drunk cops misbehaved; HC asks DGP to probe
The order came from the bench of justice Gurbir Singh, which during hearing a bail matter was apprised of the incident by Rajiv Sidhu, a deputy advocate general of the state before the high court
The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Haryana director general of police (DGP) to probe allegations by a state’s law officer of misbehavior by Sirsa cops.
The order came from the bench of justice Gurbir Singh, which during hearing a bail matter was apprised of the incident by Rajiv Sidhu, a deputy advocate general (DAG) of the state before the high court.
As per Sidhu, he called the station house officer, Rori (Sirsa), who told him that the investigating officer (IO) would call him up and brief about the case. Then, the IO, Ramniwas, called him, but being in a drunken condition, misbehaved with him. The IO also handed over the phone to another cop, Ashok, who was also in a drunken condition, and he also misbehaved. Then, the law officer made a call to the superintendent of police, Sirsa, Vikrant Bhushan, and apprised him of the incident but he, instead of taking action against the cops, also misbehaved with him and refused to give any instructions to assist him in the case before the court, the proceedings of the case of September 20 note. The issue was about bail plea of one Santokh Singh, an accused in May 2021 FIR where murder charges have been invoked at police station Rori in Sirsa.
After the petition was filed, the state’s counsel got advance notice of the same and was to apprise the court of the state’s stand in the case. However, when the case was taken up on September 20, the law officer had said that he had no instructions despite advance notice and had narrated the alleged incident.
“The matter is quite serious. Misbehaving with a state counsel, who is an officer of the court, and who was just asking for instructions in the above said matter to assist this court, amounts to interference in the judicial process,” the bench observed, asking the DGP to probe and send an action-taken report by the next date of hearing on September 27. The court also directed that the matter order be also sent to the state’s chief secretary.
