E-Paper
Sealed record copied: High court asks registrar judicial to explain
The sealed record comprises CCTV footage of the Chandigarh district court complex, where a city-based dentist was allegedly arrested on January 7
The Punjab and Haryana high court has sought explanation from one of its senior-most officers regarding replication of a CCTV footage, which was supposed to be only examined by the lawyers of the two parties involved.
The high court bench of justice Amol Rattan Singh passed the order asking registrar (judicial), responsible for maintaining court record and listing of cases, to explain why a copy of the footage was supplied to one of the lawyers when it was very clearly ordered that both counsels will only examine the sealed record upon applying for it.
The order was passed following objections by the Chandigarh Police counsel, who also claimed that the court administration did not maintain a proper record of the footage's replication.
The court was dealing with a controversy surrounding the arrest of a city-based dentist, Mohit Dhawan, by the Chandigarh Police on January 7. Dhawan has been claiming that he is being harassed at the behest of former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special director Rakesh Asthana and former Chandigarh DGP TS Luthra.
The dentist was booked on September 21, 2020, on the complaint of a Nairobi woman, who had accused him of cheating her when she visited his clinic in 2017-2018 to get dental implants.
Dhawan’s lawyer had claimed that when, on the directions of the high court, his client went to the District Courts Complex at 10am on January 7 and got an affidavit notarised to show his presence in this cheating case, he was arrested by police before he could appear before a magistrate.
On the other hand, the police had claimed that Dhawan was arrested in the evening, and from near the Sector 43 ISBT, in another FIR and not in the cheating case in which his anticipatory bail plea is pending before HC.
As such, the court had directed the sessions judge to preserve CCTV footage of all cameras installed outside the court from between 10am and 11.30am on January 7 and submit it with registrar judicial on January 27.
Subsequently, UT’s counsel had claimed that Dhawan was not seen anywhere in the morning CCTV footage, as claimed by him. But the evening footage showed him walking along with policemen in the ISBT area.
