2015 Kotkapura firing: HC seeks Punjab response on ex-IPS’s plea challenging April judgment

The judgment had led to the officer, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, resigning from service and subsequently joining Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He had also accused the state government’s legal team of putting up a “weak defence”

Chandigarh The high court on Monday sought response from the Punjab government, among others, on a plea from former IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh that challenges the April 9 judgment in Kotkapura firing case of 2015.

The plea claims that single-judge bench arrived at the decision without even reading the challan report. (HT file photo)

The plea, which runs into 1,114 pages, demands quashing of the judgment. It had also demanded a stay on the judgment, but the court did not yield, without seeking a response from the government and other parties. The bench of justice AG Masih and justice Ashok Kumar Verma has sought these responses by December 7.

The April 9 judgment of a single-judge bench had come on the 2019 plea of Gurdeep Singh Pandher, a former Punjab Police sub-inspector and the then Kotkapura station house officer (SHO) being probed in these FIRs. Pandher had moved the high court, levelling allegations against Singh and had also sought his ouster from the SIT. The high court had ordered the removal of Singh as SIT member and quashed the challan presented in the FIR in its April 9 judgment. The court had also made adverse remarks against Singh.

The judgment had led to Singh resigning from service and subsequently joining Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He had also accused the state government’s legal team of putting up a “weak defence”.

The plea says the single-judge bench assumed the jurisdiction of trial court and decided a matter which could only have been decided by the trial court. The process of adjudication so “adopted” by the single judge is totally contrary to the procedure of the criminal justice system as envisaged under the CrPC, the plea claims. “ ... Single judge is proceeding with a pre-conceived notion that the appellant was a puppet in the hands of the state government and was furthering political agenda of the state of Punjab. This is absolutely incorrect and amounts to an illegal observation, as the appellant was only performing his duties as a police officer of known integrity,” the petition underlines, adding that Singh’s response to Gurdeep’s plea was not examined or analysed in the judgment.

The plea claims that single-judge bench arrived at the decision without even reading the challan report. “The impugned order does not examine the credentials of the petitioners, does not even appreciate as to how and why and what circumstances prompted them to rush to this hon’ble court by engaging the senior-most lawyers with extreme heavy legal fee and who paid those fees as to whether the petitioners in separate petitions were just a front for senior politicians, who do not want to face trial ....,” the plea states.