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Sippy Sidhu Murder: CBI says no evidence found against judge’s daughter
Flip Flop: Federal agency terms report final but wants to continue with probe; court asks how report could be treated as final if it wants to keep case open
Five years after city based lawyer Sippy Sidhu’s murder, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has informed the CBI court that it has no evidence of the involvement of a former Punjab and Haryana high court judge’s daughter in the crime. The Federal agency, however, has said it will like to keep investigations open as it has “strong suspicions about the role of (woman’s name hidden) to eliminate Sippy Sidhu.”
Lawyer Sukhmanpreet ‘Sippy’ Singh Sidhu, 36, was shot dead in a Sector 27 park in Chandigarh on September 20, 2015. The case was transferred to CBI in 2016 after allegations by his family about the involvement of the judge’s daughter.
The woman, reportedly a friend of Sippy, was summoned and questioned twice by Chandigarh police during the initial probe. Sippy’s family had held protests alleging that she was being shielded by the police. The UT administration had on January 22, 2016, recommended a CBI probe in the case.
Why final report if probe kept open, asks court
According to the order of the special magistrate court for CBI, Ravish Kaushik, the CBI report said that despite thorough investigations the bureau could not gather sufficient evidence against the “accused.”
Even though CBI termed the report “final”, it requested the court to give directions to continue further investigations and accept an “untraced report”. To this, the court said it “fails to understand” how this report could be treated as final if investigations were kept open. “If investigations on certain aspects are still pending then why is the CBI filing an untraced report?” the court asked. It (court) has now has directed the investigating officer to clarify if the document is a final report, untraced report or just a simple status report.
Directions were also issued to CBI to submit the documents and statements of the witnesses mentioned in the report.
Sippy’s mother Deepinder Kaur Sidhu has also questioned the final report, alleging “from the outset we have been saying it’s the judge’s daughter who is involved. If they have submitted any such final report, then they must have been pressurised.”
