Jolt to former DGP saini ; got no respite from Punjab and Haryana high court
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday dismissed the anticipatory bail petition filed by Punjab’s former Director-General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini in Balwant Singh Multani kidnapping and murder case, dated December 1991, when Sumedh Singh Saini was the SSP of Chandigarh.
He had filed his bail plea at Punjab and Haryana high court, after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Mohali court.
Today Punjab and Haryana high court Justice Fateh Deep Singh also dismissed another petition filed by Saini for declaring the probe “non-est” and in violation of a Supreme Court judgment. The state, in the meantime, can initiate proceedings for declaring him proclaimed offender (PO) and this might be the first time in the police history when a DGP ranked officer, be declared as proclaimed offender (PO).Saini had filed the petition following the addition of murder offence under Section 302 of the IPC to the case, after around thirty years of the incident.
Saini finds himself on the run after being booked on May 6 in a 29-year-old case of abduction, torture and disappearance of junior engineer Balwant Singh Multani. He has been trying hard to get anticipatory bail after two co-accused in the case turned approvers in August, leading to the addition of a murder charge against him,after around thirty years of the incident.
Sumedh Singh Saini is a 1982 batch India Police Service (IPS) officer who retired as Director General of Police as well as chairman of Punjab Police Housing Corporation on June 30, 2018 after putting in 36 years of service, became the youngest DGP in the country, when in 2012, then Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine government in Punjab led by Parkash Singh Badal appointed him as State DGP. In Saini’s appointment as DGP, at least four senior officers were super ceded.
September,8,2020
