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‘Illegalities’ in arrest of dentist: HC ropes in Punjab Police for probe against Chandigarh cops
The high court bench of justice Harkesh Manuja requested the Punjab DGP to constitute an SIT, headed by an officer not below the rank of SSP, within a week
The Punjab and Haryana high court has roped in Punjab Police to probe allegations against Chandigarh Police of illegalities in the arrest of a city-based dentist, Mohit Dhawan, in January 2022.
The high court bench of justice Harkesh Manuja requested the Punjab DGP to constitute an SIT, headed by an officer not below the rank of SSP, within a week. The SIT should also be assisted by some telecom experts, it directed.
Entrusting the probe to Punjab Police in a case reported in the jurisdiction of Chandigarh Police, the court observed that the case had the “potential to shake the confidence of the common man” in the administration of justice, but if allegations were true, the conduct of police officials will amount to subverting the course of justice by causing interference in the implementation of orders passed by the courts.
The court acted on the plea by the dentist whose anticipatory bail application has been pending since 2021.
He was arrested by the Chandigarh Police on January 7, 2022, over 15 months after he was booked in September 2020 after a Nairobi woman accused him of cheating her when she visited India to get dental implants from his clinic in 2017-2018.
Dhawan has been claiming that he had gone to the District Courts Complex on January 7 on the directions of the high court to show his presence in the cheating case, but he was arrested by police before he could appear before a magistrate.
He has claimed that he was being harassed at the behest of former CBI special director Rakesh Asthana and former Chandigarh DGP TS Luthra. His plea to transfer the probe in the cheating case was dismissed by the high court in November 2020.
The Chandigarh Police has contested his claims, arguing that he was not cooperating with the probe and hence, was arrested.
Allegations are that he was abducted by four police officials, namely, constable Vikas Hooda, head constable Anil Kumar, Amitoj (later identified as ASI Ajmer) and constable Subhash Kumar, of crime branch so that he could not appear in court and in the meanwhile, another police team, consisting of inspector Harinder Singh Sekhon, sub-inspector Suresh Kumar and senior constable Neeraj, remained present before the magistrate, awaiting his appearance.
Court’s observations
The court observed, “It is said that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion, which augers well in the present case. Statutory authorities, which are entrusted and involved with the administration of justice being above board, have to stand on a higher pedestal with sterling integrity so as to dispel any doubt regarding their conduct. In addition to this, rights of the petitioner for fair investigation as enshrined under Article 21 of Constitution of India, strengthens the requirement of free, fair, independent and impartial investigation.”
“On several occasions, the court refrained itself from exercising its contempt jurisdiction just to avoid the already muddled water in the case. Sometimes information as mentioned in the affidavit was not provided or misleading affidavits were filed and at some other instances, inconsistent information surfaced from these affidavits,” the bench held, giving details of such instances.
An attempt was made by police for withholding the CCTV footage of all cameras belonging to the police department as well as District Bar Association, Chandigarh, and this also speaks volumes about the conduct of the respondents, it said, adding that it appeared that there had been efforts to delay and divert the proceedings so that the desired information (about telecom companies data) cannot be recovered from the mobile/ internet companies as the relevant data of only last two years is stored by the companies.
The court recorded nine reasons in the order as to why the probe was necessary in this case and why it should be done by an SIT outside Chandigarh.
It includes instances such as tower locations of both the police team teams reveal that they were in active coordination. Location of arresting team and dentist were found same at some points on the day when he was to appear in court. His phone location is of Sector 44 during most part of the day. Why would he not appear in court and roam around in the area, through the day, the court remarked.
The dentist gave some details like the man who notarised his affidavits. Same matched with CCTV footage of the area. He also gave some details about one of the cops, who “abducted” him. “These details are difficult to be provided in a cooked up case,” the bench added.
