Geetanjali murder case CBI asked by HC to respond to plea of Victim’s kin against bearing probe costs
Geetanjali’s father Om Prakash Aggarwal and brother Pradeep Aggarwal, reprimanded earlier by HC after they turned hostile and asked to bear expenses incurred by CBI and police in investigating the case, pleaded on April 4, 2019, that the HC order be modified. They said they had not been given a hearing before the order for recovery of expenses was given
The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to revert on the plea of the father and brother of Geetanjali, the wife of a former Gurugram chief judicial
magistrate, who was found dead in July 2013 in a park in the Haryana city.
Geetanjali’s father Om Prakash Aggarwal and brother Pradeep Aggarwal, reprimanded earlier by HC after they turned hostile and asked to bear expenses incurred by CBI and police in investigating the case, pleaded on April 4, 2019, that the HC order be modified. They said they had not been given a hearing before the order for recovery of expenses was given.
The HC order of July 27, 2018, was passed on the bail plea of Geetanjali’s husband, Ravneet Garg, an accused in the case, whose licensed revolver was found near her body. He is at present out on bail.
The state transferred the probe to CBI after Geetanjali’s parents alleged that she was being harassed for dowry. In a December 2016 chargesheet, the CBI had accused Garg and his parents of killing her because
of dowry.
Om Prakash and Pradeep, however, during trial at the Panchkula CBI court, had turned hostile, stating that there was no dowry demand. The duo had filed the plea in April 4, 2019, but notice by HC was issued on January 8, 2020.
Initially, HC had asked the duo to explain how a final order (On recovery of costs) could be modified in view of section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which disallowed altering or reviewing of judgment or a final order on merits.
“Their argument was that order was passed without affording a hearing to them, which is against the principal of natural justice. Also no formal inquiry was conducted, as mandated in law, whether evidence produced by them was false,” their lawyer, senior advocate Bipan Ghai had argued. Now the court has taken note of the argument that the HC had passed the order without hearing Om Prakash and Pradeep, which, according to them, “adversely affect their right/status”. The hearing will resume on January 15, when CBI will start its argument on why the order can’t be modified.
