New Delhi: Calling it “impractical”, a special court in Chandigarh rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) plea to hold day-to-day proceedings in a corruption case against suspended Punjab Police DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar and his alleged associate.
The CBI had moved a plea seeking daily proceedings, alleging that Bhullar was continuously filing “frivolous” applications one after another with the sole purpose of delaying the commencement of trial.
Arguing for the agency, Special Public Prosecutor Narinder Singh argued that Bhullar had adopted the strategy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s order on 10 April this year, which, while denying him bail, had also offered Bhullar a window for relief, asking him to approach the high court once again if the trial did not begin within two months.
On the other hand, senior advocate Sartej Singh Narula and SPS Bhullar argued that the CBI’s plea for expeditious proceedings was premature and could take effect only after the trial commences. Additionally, they argued that the court’s order taking cognisance of the CBI’s chargesheet was still pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and that the case had reached only the stage of supplying documents to the accused persons.
Deciding against the plea, the court observed that the provisions of expeditious trial apply in any case only after the charges are framed and that a formal direction can be passed only at the time of prosecution evidence during the trial.
The central agency had in October last year arrested Bhullar for allegedly demanding a Rs 8 lakh bribe from a businessman to offer him relief in a case pending before a police station under his jurisdiction. At the time, he was posted as DIG of Ropar Range and was arrested in his office after the arrest of a middleman, Kirshanu Sharda, who allegedly collected the bribe on his behalf. The agency had filed a chargesheet against the two in December, and the court took cognisance of it in March this year.
“A perusal of the file suggests that the court has been regulating the proceedings to avoid delay in view of the fact that the accused are in custody by fixing a tight schedule, but to insist upon a day-to-day schedule at this stage by the prosecution is impracticable,” Special CBI Judge Bhawana Jain observed in the order Monday.
“Provisions of section 4 of the Prevention of Corruption Act are primarily concerned with the conduct of trial after cognisance, and particularly after commencement of the evidence. Formal directions for day-to-day trial, if any, may be given after framing of charge and at the commencement of the prosecution evidence,” she further observed, reiterating that the application was “not practical to be allowed”.
Applying the same principle, the Special CBI Judge also junked Bhullar’s plea seeking copies of documents marked “unrelied documents” by the agency, along with cloned copies of the data retrieved from the list of “unrelied articles”, saying those documents can’t be supplied before framing of charges. Giving away those documents, the judge observed, would compromise the investigation.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)