{Multani disappearance case} HC stays trial court proceedings against ex-DGP Saini

The Punjab and Haryana high court has stayed trial court proceedings against the former director general of police (DGP), Sumedh Singh Saini, in the disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani, a Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation (CITCO) employee, in 1991.
The order was passed by the high court bench of justice Anoop Chitkara while hearing a plea from the former DGP seeking the quashing of the FIR and subsequent chargesheet filed by the Punjab police.
Multani was allegedly picked up by two officers in 1991 after a terrorist attack on Saini, who then was Chandigarh senior superintendent of police (SSP), in which four policemen in his security were killed. The police later claimed that Multani escaped from the custody of the Qadian police.
Saini was booked in May 2020, almost 30 years after Multani went missing, during the regime of the Congress government in Punjab. Saini and six others were booked on the complaint of Multani’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, who is a resident of Jalandhar. The case was registered against them under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causes hurt) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at Mataur police station in Mohali. In the chargesheet, murder charges were also invoked. He secured anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court on December 3, 2020.
The high court while deferring hearing for December 12 asked the Punjab police to respond to the issues raised by the former DGP by November 30 and the DGP has been told to submit his response by the adjourned date.
“It is further clarified that the arguments qua charges shall not be heard till the pendency of the present petition. Further proceedings beyond the stage of cognizance shall remain stayed. There is no stay of committal proceedings,” the bench said.
Saini in the plea had claimed: “The present is a class case of criminal proceedings being manifestly attended with malafide and being maliciously instituted with the ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance.”
“The petitioner’s failure to succumb to political pressure while performing his duties earned the wrath of the high political functionaries which befell the petitioner when demitted office in June 2018. The FIR and consequent chargesheet are examples of vindictive prosecution launched by high political functionaries with the sole object to harass the petitioner,” the plea alleged.
It further argues that there is not even a single witness in this case from whose statement, even prime facie, it can be said that the petitioner has committed any crime. “…the entire investigation shows that the petitioner has been clubbed with three dead men so that there are no means to verify the truth, the chargesheet filed by the state in the present case is a result of the tainted investigation,” he had claimed.
It is to be recalled that the Supreme Court in September this year had dismissed his 2020 plea seeking quashing of the FIR, in view of the chargesheet filed against him. However, it had given him the liberty to approach the high court afresh. At the time of filing of the earlier petition, chargesheet had not been filed against him.