Chandigarh The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed pleas from at least nine cops from Punjab against criminal proceedings initiated against them for alleged disappearance of youths in Punjab from 1992. They had challenged the jurisdiction of the Jammu branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register FIRs and probe these cases.
The petitions were dismissed, with the court holding that the CBI had acted on the directions of the Supreme Court. The CBI had charge-sheeted the cops for alleged abduction and killing of innocent persons in Punjab during that period. The cases were registered in 1997 on incident of disappearance of a youth in Amritsar, with the charge-sheet being filed in 1999.
The trial got held-up with these cops challenging the proceedings. With this, the trial would resume at Mohali CBI special court now. The main argument was that CBI did not have territorial jurisdiction to register the case in Jammu as all the alleged incidents were related to Punjab. The complainants had argued that they are habitual of filing repeated petitions, only to delay the trial.