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Row over ‘casteist remarks’: High court bars SC panel chief from interfering in probe against Warring
The bench of justice JS Puri said that the prima facie view of the court is that the commission and its chairman are not empowered to interfere in the investigation being conducted by the police pursuant to registration of a criminal case.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday restrained the Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman from interfering in the police probe into a criminal case filed against Punjab Congress president, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, for alleged ‘casteist’ remarks made against former Union minister Buta Singh.
The bench of justice JS Puri said that the prima facie view of the court is that the commission and its chairman are not empowered to interfere in the investigation being conducted by the police pursuant to registration of a criminal case. The bench has sought a response from the commission and its chairman, Jasvir Singh Garhi, by December 11 on the allegations levelled by Warring.
“It is directed that in the meanwhile, respondent No.3 (chairman) shall not interfere by any means whatsoever in the investigation process being conducted by the Investigating Officer in the FIR (in question)..,” the bench recorded.
Warring, while campaigning in favour of the Congress candidate for the November 11 Tarn Taran assembly bypoll, allegedly made some remarks about the former Union minister Buta Singh, a veteran Congress leader, which drew widespread criticism, and a criminal case was filed against him on November 4 in Kapurthala. The commission had also initiated proceedings subsequently and also sought reports from the police in regard to the probe.
Warring in the high court had sought the quashing of proceedings initiated by the commission, and as an interim stay on the proceedings and a restraining order against the commission for not ‘interfering’ in the police probe.
He had alleged that the commission chairman is actively interfering with the ongoing police investigation in the FIR and directing the police officials to investigate the case in “a certain manner and to further arrest him”.
While showing a video of the proceedings conducted at the commission during the hearing, his counsel had told the court that the tenor of the questioning by the chairman to the investigating officer of the FIR makes it very clear that there has been a direct intervention in the investigation process. “…it is a settled law that even the courts would not directly interfere in the investigation process because it is the duty of the investigating officer to conduct the investigation according to his own wisdom and in accordance with law and respondent No.3 is only a Chairman appointed under the Act and even if he is a quasi-judicial body, still he cannot interfere in the investigation to be conducted by the police,” the court was told. Warring’s counsel added that the commission has got powers of its own to investigate on the basis of any complaint or suo motu for the purpose of making recommendations, if any, to the state government, but the chairman does not have any power to interfere in the investigation process, which is undertaken by the police in an FIR registered by the state police. “…the powers of the commission are purely recommendatory in nature and it has no jurisdiction to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the counsel had added.
