E-Paper
Mohali court orders FIR against woman inspector for seeking graft
Palak Dev, 34, of Panchkula, filed a petition against the Punjab DGP and inspector Amanjot Kaur, accusing her of seeking graft and sought directions to register an FIR against the cop under the Prevention of Corruption Act
Taking strict note of an alleged demand of ₹25-lakh bribe by a woman inspector deployed with the Mohali cyber cell, to help an accused to get bail and avoid custodial torture, a local court on Thursday directed the Punjab director general of police (DGP) Punjab to book the cop.
Palak Dev, 34, of Panchkula, filed a petition against the Punjab DGP and inspector Amanjot Kaur, accusing her of seeking graft and sought directions to register an FIR against the cop under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
She said on the inspector’s complaint, a cheating and criminal conspiracy case was registered against six persons, who were running an IT solutions company, at the Sohana police station on January 10, 2024.
It was alleged that during the accused’s police remand, on January 11, the inspector demanded ₹50 lakh from one of the accused Vijay Raj Kapuria and assured him of sparing him of custodial torture and also help in getting bail.
After Kapuria refused to pay, all accused were beaten up with sticks on their soles and cops got their remand extended by two days, Dev alleged.
During the second police remand, on January 12, Kapuria negotiated with Kaur and she allegedly settled for ₹25 lakh as bribe and asked him to inform his wife, Sunita Kumari, and applicant Palak Dev, a family friend of Kapuria, to arrange the money.
On January 13, Kapuria called his wife and asked her to visit him and arrange ₹25 lakh. The audio recording of the same was available. Kapuria also called the applicant to meet him.
Both Dev and Sunita went to the police station and met Vijay as well as the inspector, who allegedly told them to arrange the money.
The matter was reported to the Vigilance Bureau (VB) and the next afternoon, VB called Sunita and assured her of laying a trap to apprehend Kaur red-handed, the complainant told the court.
Initially VB gave a recorder to the applicant, but on January 14, VB called her and suggested her to file a complaint on Punjab’s Anti Corruption helpline.
VB submits report in court
On the request of the applicant, the court sought a status report from VB.
The assistant general of police, VB, submitting a report on February 7, mentioned about a video call of 1:35 minutes of a lady with inspector Kaur.
The court observed that from the transcript, it was made out that Kaur was asking to arrange cash. Kaur however denied seeking any bribe.
“It appears that either the information of the VB trap was leaked to Kaur or the trap did not mature due to some other reasons. There are serious allegations against Kaur, for which thorough investigation is required to be conducted. Hence the present application is allowed and complaint is referred to DGP, Punjab, for directing the authority concerned to register an FIR against Kaur and to hand over the probe to a senior officer not below the rank of superintendent of police,” said the court of additional sessions judge Sandeep Kumar Singla.
The court further ordered that the complaint should be treated as a First Information Report. “The copy of order is being sent to DGP as the complainant had failed to get justice despite filing a complaint before the vigilance authorities and also on the CM’s helpline,” the court observed.
