CBI court sends Haryana judge to judicial custody

PANCHKULA: The CBI’s special magistrate, Haryana, has sent senior division civil judge Ravneet Garg to 14-day judicial custody in his wife Geetanjali’s murder case.

PANCHKULA: The CBI’s special magistrate, Haryana, has sent senior division civil judge Ravneet Garg to 14-day judicial custody in his wife Geetanjali’s murder case.

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Garg, who is posted at Kaithal, will be now be lodged in the Ambala jail.

28-year-old Geetanjali was found dead in a park at Police Lines in Gurgaon with multiple firearm injuries, on July 17, 2013. The licensed revolver of her husband, then chief judicial magistrate of Gurgaon, was found by her body.

The CBI, which is investigating the case, did not press for further remand on Tuesday and requested the court to send Garg to judicial custody.

CBI counsel LD Tiwari submitted: “This learned court may kindly be pleased to remand Shri Ravneet Garg to judicial custody for a period of 14 days as investigations is at a crucial stage in the interest of justice.”

Earlier, on September 8 the CBI sought a 14-day police remand but got only 5 days. He was arrested on the night of September 7 from Kaithal.

Ravneet Garg was taken to Delhi for custodial interrogation during his remand period. The CBI was looking for his revolver’s cartridges used in killing Geetanjali.

Defence counsel SK Garg Narwana said: “The CBI has failed to recover anything from our client. They interrogated him in Delhi with the same questions. Earlier also, the CBI had asked him same questions on 7-8 earlier occasions.”

He maintained that Ravneet Garg was in a video conference at the time of Geetanjali’s murder.

Geetanjali and Ravneet got married in 2007. She is survived by two daughters Aasma, now 7, and Adiva, 6.

Om Prakash Aggarwal, Geetanjali’s father, raised two important points in the case. “There was no blood on the crime spot. Why could the Gurgaon police not trace any bullet or shell from the crime spot in the first few days?” Aggarwal asked.

The CBI submitted in its report that Ravneet Garg and his parents demanded and accepted huge dowry in cash, jewellery and a car at the time of his marriage with Geetanjali.

Thereafter, he continued to torture his wife for more dowry and obtained another car, a plot of land and money to meet day-to-day expenses from her parents. Garg and his parents also regularly cursed the deceased for not being able to give birth to a male child as she had given birth to two female children.