Punjab additional DGP tried to intimidate judge

Punjab’s additional director-general of police (vigilance)  Sumedh Singh Saini, who has been charge-sheeted by a CBI special court for abduction and criminal conspiracy in one case and against whom an FIR has been filed in another case involving the murder of several innocents, has been accused by a former Punjab and Haryana high court judge of trying to intimidate him through strong-arm and scare tactics.

In a judgment delivered on December 22, 1995, justice VK Jhanji quoted several instances wherein attempts were made to lower the dignity of the court and the presiding judges.

Commenting on an application filed by Saini to transfer the case from his court, justice Jhanji remarked: “The allegations made are scandalous, contemptuous and a brazen attempt to interfere with the administration of justice. The entire exercise is an attempt to somehow prevent this hon’ble court from dealing with this matter.”

The case being referred to was one in which Ashish Kumar, a Delhi-based businessman, had accused Saini of having a hand in the disappearance of three people, including Kumar’s brother and brother-in-law, and a driver, following a business dispute. Kumar repeated his allegations, first reported by DNA, at a press conference on Tuesday.

Saini did everything possible to delay the cases, and even intimidated the judge dealing with it and suggested that someone else should hear the case.

“The applicant (Saini) appears to suffer from a pompous delusion of self-righteousness. The application appears to suggest that judicial independence must bow before blackmail.  The applicant cannot be permitted to misuse the process of law,” justice Jhanji said in his 1995 order.

“The present application appears to be another bid to get the case out of my board.  When I have said “another”, I mean to say that in the past too, such attempts had been made,” he further remarked.

Giving an example, justice Jhanji wrote: “One such attempt was when a retinue of Nihangs who are stated to be close to one of the police officials swarmed the court-room, leaving no space for lawyers and parties concerned. They vacated the court-room when services of CRPF personnel posted in the high court were requisitioned.”

“During this time, I had also been receiving anonymous telephone calls threatening to wash away my hands (sic) from this case and one such caller had gone to the extent of saying that I would be picked up and thrown in furnace like the three had been thrown along with their car and scooter (the reference was to Ashish Kumar’s relatives). I had brought all these facts to the notice of my lord the chief justice in the  presence of my brother judges. The modus operandi thus, had been to create fear psychosis. The present application has come to be filed only when this court did not deter from proceeding with the case,” justice Jhanji concluded.