2015 Kotkapura firing: Fairness of probe stands vitiated, report based on assumptions, says HC

Terming the matter a rare case where the court is under duty to step-in, the Punjab and Haryana high court, while quashing the charge sheets filed by Punjab Police in Kotkapura firing case of 2015, said that fairness of investigation stands vitiated

Terming the matter a rare case where the court is under duty to step-in, the Punjab and Haryana high court, while quashing the charge sheets filed by Punjab Police in Kotkapura firing case of 2015, said that fairness of investigation stands vitiated. “…What could have been a simple investigation of a crime committed either by the protesters or by the police or by both, have been made to fester and convert itself to a quagmire wherein every person concerned finds himself entrapped,” the bench of justice Rajbir Sehrawat said in his 89-page judgment.

2015 Kotkapura firing verdict

The judgment was pronounced on April 9, and made available on Friday. The government has been asked to constitute a three-member special investigation team (SIT) but not to include IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who has since taken voluntarily retirement, as member. The SIT has been told not to report to any state executive or police authority and file probe reports before the magistrate concerned. The report submitted preferably within six months of constitution has also to be signed by all members. The SIT has also been barred from talking to media.

The high court order came on the 2019 plea of Gurdeep Singh Pandher, a former Punjab Police sub-inspector and then Kotkapura SHO, being probed in these FIRs, who had approached the high court, levelling allegations against IGP Singh and seeking his ouster from the SIT. Another applicant was a head constable (retd) Rashpal Singh.

“His personal malice and malafide functioning by totally usurping the powers of SIT constituted in the first instance, has been duly demonstrated on record,” the court said on the role of IGP Singh, adding that it was demonstrated before the court that he has gone to the extent of manufacturing the statements of witnesses to suit his “designs”.

“…(IGP Singh) has conducted the investigation in a perfunctory manner. The report under Section 173 CrPC (challans) filed by him is more in the nature of a hypothesis proposed ….based on his assumptions and fantasies than being based on material or evidence,” the bench recorded.

Claiming role of Badals, he relied upon the call details between then DGP, then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and then deputy CM Sukhbir Badal, but that would not be sufficient in the times of a situation where the law and order is disturbed, the court said. “Had the then chief minister not been in contact with the district administration and the DGP in such a critical situation, then he would have run the risk of being branded as another Nero who played fiddle when the Rome was burning,” the court said, adding that it would rather show that he was alive to the situation. The court also said claims against the Badals were made in 2019 but till date there is no charge sheet.

The court also observed that there are selective omissions in statements of witnesses to save the protesters, which demolishes the integrity of the investigation.

It said allegations of police officers who got injured in the firing were not probed. The police officers acted on the order from civil administration but none of the civil authorities or the SDM has been made an accused in this case. “…The political interest of the current dispensation in the state qua the investigation; and the political theatrics of respondent No. 3 by going to media and by repeatedly highlighting allegations against the outgoing politicians without filing challan against them intended to create a narrative in favour of one political party and against the other party during the election process, which has duly been established as per the record,” the bench said on his act of giving interviews while making claims against Badals in 2019 elections, which resulted in Election Commission of India transferring him out of his assignment.