The special CBI court hearing the Sippy Sidhu murder case has once again given “one last opportunity” to the probe agency to comply with Punjab and Haryana high court’s order by the next hearing on December 6.
On October 4, the high court had directed CBI to provide probe documents as sought by Kalyani Singh, the prime accused in the murder case, within two weeks.
CBI was first directed to supply probe documents to Kalyani on May 8, which the probe agency has challenged before the Supreme Court (SC) through a special leave petition (SLP), whose decision is pending.
Through a fresh application on November 10, while including a letter of urgency written to the SC registrar, CBI had stated that the matter was likely to be listed before the apex court on December 1.
Following this, the court had said, “It is however seen that there has been much delay by CBI in complying with the directions of the high court and as such, one last opportunity for the same is granted for November 22. If still, the compliance is not made, the same would be brought to the notice of the high court,” the order stated.
Hearing the matter again on Wednesday (November 22), the court said, “Although CBI was strictly directed to comply with the orders by today, keeping in view the no objection for adjournment of the matter by the learned defence counsel, in the interest of justice, one last opportunity for compliance of the order of the high court is granted to CBI to produce any order of stay by December 6 and on failure to do so, to comply with the order of the high court.”
{{/usCountry}}Hearing the matter again on Wednesday (November 22), the court said, “Although CBI was strictly directed to comply with the orders by today, keeping in view the no objection for adjournment of the matter by the learned defence counsel, in the interest of justice, one last opportunity for compliance of the order of the high court is granted to CBI to produce any order of stay by December 6 and on failure to do so, to comply with the order of the high court.”
{{/usCountry}}The murder case has been listed before the trial court at least 26 times since May.
National-level shooter and lawyer Sukhmanpreet Singh, better known as Sippy Sidhu, was shot dead at a park in Sector 27 on September 20, 2015. His family has maintained that Kalyani, daughter of a former Punjab and Haryana high court judge justice Sabina (retd), killed him as they had turned down her marriage proposal.
The case was initially probed by the Chandigarh Police, but in 2016, it was transferred to CBI. The central agency had at one point of time also filed an “untraced report”. But in June 2022, she was arrested by CBI and later charged with murder. Since September 2022, Kalyani has been out on bail.
On May 8 this year, the high court had allowed Kalyani’s plea, wherein she had sought access to copies of documents filed by the prosecution, and electronic data and articles not relied upon by CBI in the challan, along with those relied upon by the agency in the “untraced report” filed in 2020.
Following the high court’s October 4 order, directing CBI yet again to comply with its May order within two weeks, the trial court had also told CBI to adhere to the order within the given time frame.
But CBI moved an application stating that its SLP was pending before SC and nearly two months later, has yet to comply with the HC order.