Asking Punjab police to give seven-day advance notice before arresting former director general of police (DGP) Siddharth Chattopadhyaya in the Inderpreet Chadha suicide case, the Punjab and Haryana high court has observed that allegations against him are “highly doubtful.”
It said diary entries and suicide notes are stated to have been written by Chadha in the months of April, May and June 2016, and he committed suicide in January 2018, after a lapse of more than a year and a half.
“No doubt the petitioner has been named by the deceased alleging that he was hand in glove with the persons who were tarnishing the reputation of the deceased (referring to Chadha’s diaries). To say that the same is either an immediate cause of the deceased taking extreme step of committing suicide or otherwise should be contributory factor, is though highly doubtful, but be that as it may, the same is for the investigating agency to unravel,” the bench of justice Arun Monga recorded while adding that at this stage it was sufficient to note that these entries are stated to be the reason of investigating agency seeking to record Chattopadhyaya’s statements about his role in the suicide case.
These observations have been made on the plea filed by Chattopadhyaya demanding that he be given seven-day advance notice in the event of arrest by Punjab police in the case in question. The plea was disposed of on October 9, and a detailed order has been made available now. The court while making these observations made it clear that the observations made are tentative for the limited purpose of the disposal of the petition and same shall not be construed as an expression of any opinion on the merits of the case.
{{/usCountry}}These observations have been made on the plea filed by Chattopadhyaya demanding that he be given seven-day advance notice in the event of arrest by Punjab police in the case in question. The plea was disposed of on October 9, and a detailed order has been made available now. The court while making these observations made it clear that the observations made are tentative for the limited purpose of the disposal of the petition and same shall not be construed as an expression of any opinion on the merits of the case.
{{/usCountry}}Chadha, former Chief Khalsa Diwan vice-president, died on January 3, 2018, after he shot himself in Amritsar. An FIR was registered the same day on the complaint of his son. As per police, the alleged role of former DGP had cropped up in 2018. However, claiming implication in the case, Chattopadhyaya had secured a stay on the investigation in May 2018, which was vacated by the high court on September 15.
It was subsequent to this order that the former DGP approached the high court arguing that he had been falsely dragged in the impugned FIR, at the behest of certain senior officer, to desist him at the relevant time, from holding an independent and fair inquiry into the nexus between the law enforcing agencies and the drug peddlers, wherein the names of senior police officers were also emerging.
The court said that given that, the investigation remained stayed for as long as 5 years, it would be rather just and proper that the petitioner, instead of being taken by surprise, is given advance notice if he is to be arrested in the FIR in question. The court, however, directed the former DGP to join the probe forthwith and respond to the questionnaire prepared in this case by police within a period of two weeks.