Shimla: In a significant development in the two-month-old Vimal Negi death case, the Himachal Pradesh High Court Friday allowed his wife’s plea to transfer the probe to the CBI, while pulling up the state government for “becoming a mouthpiece of delinquent officers” and lambasting the police for “indiscipline”.
The court also directed that any Special Investigation Team the CBI constitutes to probe the case must not include any officer from the Himachal cadre.
Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (HPPCL) chief engineer Vimal Negi went missing 10 March, and his body was found eight days later. His family has alleged his superiors subjected him to mental harassment.
State Director General of Police Atul Verma and Shimla Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Gandhi, who was leading the probe as the head of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) he himself formed 19 March, sparred over the handling of evidence and other aspects of the case.
The differences came to the fore after the officers filed their separate reports to the court on 20 May. The court heard them the next day and reserved its judgement on Kiran Negi’s plea to transfer the case to the CBI.
The police had initially classified the death as a case of suicide, a conclusion challenged by Kiran, who filed a petition in April for a CBI investigation. Her petition alleged foul play, investigative lapses by the SIT, and six months of mental harassment of her husband by senior HPPCL officials, including pressure to facilitate corruption in a solar power project.
Delivering the order Friday, Justice Ajay Mohan Goel allowed Kiran’s petition after intense scrutiny of the two officers’ conflicting reports. “This court is appalled by the mode and manner in which the investigation indeed is going on in terms of the affidavit filed by the Superintendent of Police, Shimla,” Justice Goel observed.
“It appears as if the SIT is of the view that its job is to investigate whether deceased Vimal Negi ended his life for the simple reason that he was being subjected to improper behavior by Desh Raj, Director (Electrical) and Shri Harikesh Meena, IAS, Managing Director,” Justice Goel said. “The affidavit is conspicuously silent as to what investigation has been carried out by the SIT till date from the angle that Vimal Negi was pressurised by his superiors for extraneous reason to help a Project proponent. Why so? This only the SIT can answer.”
During the previous hearing, Justice Goel expressed dismay at the discord within the police force, stating, “There is something known as discipline. How can an SP stand in a court of law and say something against the director general? This is indiscipline in the forces. If there is a problem between you and the DGP, this erodes the confidence of the petitioner. Why should the matter not be handed over to the CBI?”
The court previously also restrained the police from filing a charge sheet, signaling concerns over the integrity of the investigation process.
The case
Vimal Negi went missing on 10 March, while traveling from Shimla to Bilaspur. His body was found 18 March in the Govind Sagar Lake. The postmortem report noted no visible injuries and cited drowning as the cause of death.
After an FIR was registered on 21 March, the state government formed a fact-finding committee under Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Onkar Chand Sharma. His 66-page report backed Kiran’s claims of harassment within the HPPCL.
In its order delivered Friday, the court also questioned the way the government handled this report.
“(The) mode and manner in which the government dealt with the report of the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) raises serious questions. First of all, when Secretary (Power) had called upon the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to hold a fact-finding inquiry and the officer had done so, the State ought to have had acted upon it dispassionately, rather than becoming a mouthpiece of delinquent officers so as to propagate the cause of delinquent officers,” the court observed.
The court also said after the report was submitted, the competent authority could have furnished it to the “delinquent” officers and sought their responses. “However, rather than doing this, the State chose to sit over the same and ensured that the inquiry report does not see the light of the day.”
Initially, the state government ordered an inquiry by the police, asking them to speak to Negi’s family members and also the officials they accused of harassing him. Kiran’s complaint named HPPCL officials former managing director Harikesh Meena, director (personnel) Shivam Pratap Singh and director (electrical) Desh Raj.
Meena secured anticipatory bail 7 April, while Desh Raj’s anticipatory bail plea was rejected on 26 March, and he is reportedly absconding. Singh has been reassigned to a different role.
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Police vs police
On March 19, Shimla SP Gandhi formed an SIT under his own supervision to investigate the case. On 22 March, DGP Verma formed another SIT as the matter snowballed. This SIT was also headed by the SP, but under the overall supervision of the state police headquarters.
During previous hearings, the HC asked the SP to file his report and also sought an independent status report from the DGP.
The matter took a dramatic turn when the DGP filed an affidavit criticising the SP-led SIT’s handling of evidence, specifically the alleged targeting of Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Pankaj who allegedly concealed a pen drive found on Negi’s body and deleted its data.
The second SIT, which was formed by the DGP, recovered the pen drive which contained nearly 14,000 pages of data currently under review. However, Verma’s affidavit did not mention if any disciplinary action was taken against Pankaj, prompting sharp questions from the court about accountability within the force.
Advocate General Anup Kumar Rattan told the media 21 May the second SIT had recovered the erased data and was proceeding as per the court’s directions.
However, Verma’s affidavit raised doubts about the data’s integrity, fueling allegations of evidence tampering.
Kiran’s counsel Advocate R.K. Bawa told ThePrint, “The case has been given to the CBI. This was what we had prayed for. Conflicting affidavits from the DGP and the SP had underscored the investigation’s unreliability.”
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What’s in a pen drive
The pen drive has emerged as a central point of contention. The recovery of the pen drive’s content by the second SIT has not fully dispelled concerns about the data’s integrity. Kiran’s legal team has pointed to these inconsistencies as evidence of systemic issues within the state police’s handling of the case.
Additionally, the advocate general also revealed that Verma’s affidavit was submitted directly to the court without informing his office, a procedural lapse mentioned in the ACS Sharma’s fact-finding report, which noted “misbehaviour” by HPPCL officers toward Negi.
The Vimal Negi case has ignited a political storm in Himachal Pradesh, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the Congress-led Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government of shielding influential figures.
Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur told ThePrint, “The entire story points to a cover-up. We are not demoralising the state police, but the investigation’s conduct raises doubts. We want justice for Vimal Negi’s family, and the probe now has been handed over to the CBI. This was what the family had been demanding, and the government should have listened to them.”
Addressing the assembly on 24 March, Chief Minister Sukhu expressed openness to a CBI probe, and said “we stand with the bereaved family”. He said Kiran initially trusted the state’s process but grew frustrated with perceived delays.
Fact-finding inquiry and HPPCL’s role
The state government’s fact-finding inquiry, led by ACS Sharma, confirmed instances of harassment within HPPCL. But the report was returned by the power department 14 May, arguing that the 66-page document exceeded its scope and ran afoul of the principle of natural justice by not allowing implicated officers to respond.
In the 15 May response, Sharma defended the inquiry as a fact-finding process, noting that the accused officers provided signed statements without objection. He maintained that revisiting the report was unjustifiable and returned it unaltered.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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