HC dismisses IPS officer Ashish Kapoor’s plea seeking transfer of case to another judge

The vigilance bureau had alleged that Kapoor had taken 11 cheques from the woman and got cheques deposited under the names of his known people and got them encashed through ASI Harjinder Singh.

The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed a plea from IPS officer, Ashish Kapoor, who had challenged a Mohali court order granting pardon to an accused cop and making him an approver against him in a ₹1 crore bribery case.

IPS officer Ashish Kapoor.

As per the plea, the special court of Mohali on November 22, 2023, had granted pardon to the cop in question, ASI Harjinder Singh. Singh was initially booked with Kapoor an assistant inspector general (AIG) level officer, on October 6, 2023, as an accused for taking a bribe of ₹1 crore through different cheques from a woman.

The vigilance bureau had alleged that Kapoor had taken 11 cheques from the woman and got cheques deposited under the names of his known people and got them encashed through Singh.

In the plea before the high court, Kapoor had argued that the judge who pardoned Singh and made him an approver should not conduct the trial and the case should be transferred to some other judge.

The bench of justice Anoop Chitkara dismissed the plea observing that the Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act) is a special Act, and in Section 5(3) of the PC Act, it has been explicitly mentioned that provisions of CrPC shall apply so far as they are not inconsistent with this Act. “In case, Section 306 of CrPC had to apply over and above the PC Act, then there was no reason for the legislature to explicitly carve out a special provision under Section 5(3) of the PC Act. Thus, it shows that the legislature purposely did not retain Section 306 (5) CrPC in the PC Act,” it added. Section 306 of the CrPC deals with the tender of pardon by the court to an accused and further mandates that once the court has granted the pardon, it would transfer the case for trial to another judge.