Row over ‘role’ of cops in drug cases: HC refuses to make sealed report by ex-DGP Chattopadhyaya public

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday refused to make public a sealed cover report submitted by the ex-Director General of Police Siddharth Chattopadhyaya, submitted in 2018 on the alleged ‘role’ of cops in drugs cases in Punjab

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday refused to make public a sealed cover report submitted by the ex-Director General of Police Siddharth Chattopadhyaya, submitted in 2018 on the alleged ‘role’ of cops in drugs cases in Punjab.

The court also took note of the fact that the government itself had said in the court that Chattopadhyaya had gone beyond the mandate by filing a report in his individual capacity.

“Keeping in view the specific orders passed in that context and since it was a three-member committee and it was not within the domain of a single member to digress from his duties for the apparent reasons ... Thus, the report shall continue to remain sealed and be kept with registrar (judicial) as a part of the record,” the bench of justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan ordered, acting on the pleas by two former DGPs, Suresh Arora, who is currently chief information commissioner, Punjab, and Dinkar Gupta, who is now director, National Investigation Agency (NIA), New Delhi.

The court-monitored SIT led by Chattopadhyaya was constituted on December 15, 2017, after a then SSP, Raj Jit Singh, now dismissed given his complicity in drugs cases after the opening of sealed cover reports, had levelled allegations of bias against IPS officer Harpreet Singh Sidhu, then chief of a special task force (STF) that was investigating the drugs case.

The SIT submitted two reports, one on January 30, 2018, and the second on March 14, 2018. On April 6, 2018, Chattopadhyaya told the court that the ‘role’ of then police chief Arora and then DGP (intelligence) Gupta had also come to light during the investigation. He also suggested that he was being implicated in the suicide case of Inderpreet Chadha, son of former Chief Khalsa Diwan president Charanjit Singh Chadha because the SIT was getting close to the ‘truth’. The suicide case was registered in Amritsar in January 2018. Taking note of this, the court stayed proceedings against Chattopadhyaya in the FIR in question. On Friday, the court also vacated the stay into probe on the role of Chattopadhyaya in the suicide case of Chadha.

On May 8, 2018, two more reports were filed. Of this, one was signed only by Chattopadhyaya. The high court took all these reports on record on May 8, 2018.

All the reports were opened by the high court in April this year and three reports submitted by the SIT were made public. However, the fourth report was kept in a sealed cover as Aora and Gupta approached the high court demanding that the report filed by Chattopadhyaya in an individual capacity should not be opened.

State free to probe role of other officials: HC

Refusing to entertain the fourth report, the court observed that the focus of the investigation and the mandate to the SIT was only regarding the complicity of Inderjit Singh, another cop being probed along with Raj Jit Singh and not beyond that. “…the three-member SIT never conducted any investigation jointly regarding the task beyond what had been entrusted to it (probing allegations against Raj Jit Singh) and therefore, the conclusion which was arrived at by the head of the SIT in his separate report can safely be judged as one beyond the mandate given by this court,” the court said.

It further observed that the fourth report was perused by the bench and ‘apparently’ Chattopadhyaya’s focus shifted to a house being constructed in Chandigarh by a relative of Dinkar Gupta. The allegation of benami house, in this case, had been enquired into and the conclusion arrived at was that the property in question was not benami and the source of income for purchase and construction had been established, it said.

Court said, Chattopadhyaya’s report claimed inaction on Arora’s part as Raj Jit Singh was not removed from a sensitive place of posting or public dealing even as there were allegations against him.

The court also noted the report in question was filed by Chattopadhyaya months before the state was to appoint a new DGP in place of Arora. Gupta succeeded Arora and litigation around the appointment went up to Supreme Court. Arora was part of the empanelment committee for the appointment of the DGP.

The court also took note of the fact that the government itself had said in the court that Chattopadhyaya had gone beyond the mandate by filing a report in his individual capacity.

“These factors would go on to further cement the opinion of this court that reliance upon the report submitted in an individual capacity is not warranted for, and therefore, the fact of the said report to be made public and not acted upon needs to be approved,” it said.

The court said that the three-member SIT had concluded that the role of other officials, if any, in helping Raj Jit Singh, would be a complex one involving multiple agencies. Hence, needs to be probed separately. The court has now left it open to the government and STF to go into any such probe.