Rajbir chargesheet likely next week

Investigations in the Rajbir Singh murder case are being speeded up as the deadline to file the charge sheet nears.

Top sources in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over probe of the case on June 3, said they would in all likelihood be filing the chargesheet by next week.

ACP Rajbir Singh of the Delhi Police was allegedly shot dead by Vijay Bhardwaj, a property dealer, when he had gone to meet the latter in his office in Gurgaon on March 24.

The charge sheet has to be filed within 90 days of the first arrest made in the case and failure to do so entitles the suspect to seek bail. In this case, Bhardwaj had surrendered before the Gurgaon Police immediately after the incident on March 24.

After Rajbir’s family demanded a CBI probe, the Haryana government issued a notification for transferring the case to the CBI. The agency registered the case under Section 302 of the IPC and Section 25 of the Arms Act. The central government issued the notification on May 27 for transferring the case to the agency.

Sources said the investigations conducted by the agency so far indicated that Bhardwaj killed Rajbir.

“We can carry on with the investigation even after the charge sheet has been filed. Other angles in the case like the mystery behind the revolver and how Bhardwaj got it, a larger conspiracy behind the ACP's murder, can be probed later and supplementary charge sheets filed,” an official said. A CBI team accompanied by experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory had last week inspected the crime scene.

Bhardwaj had confessed to the crime and is in judicial custody at present. He had told the police that he owed Rajbir Rs 95 lakh and that the ACP had been threatening him to return the money. Bhardwaj had said that his firing at the ACP was a spur-of-the-moment act. Gurgaon Police had concluded that Bhardwaj had acted on the spur of the moment and that no one else was involved in the crime.