Chandigarh, September
16: Punjab government on Wednesday told High Court that it has constituted a
special investigation team to complete probe in the rape case against a legislator in a month.
As the matter came up for resumed hearing before the bench of Justice Rajan
Gupta and Justice Karamjit Singh, Punjab Additional Advocate-General SPS Tinna
placed before the court an affidavit by Inspector-General of Police, Bureau of
Investigation, Gursharan Singh Sandhu.
He submitted that the
state, pursuant to an order dated September 3, had decided to have a more
competent investigating agency. As a result, it had constituted an SIT headed by
ADCP (Investigation) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti.
Responding to the
submissions, the “victim’s” counsel CM Munjal alleged that the accused was
intimidating the witnesses by getting cases registered against them outside
Punjab on one allegation or the other. “On instructions from Rupinder Kaur
Bhatti, AAG Tinna submits that this matter shall also be looked into,” the
Bench added.
Alleging police
inaction in the case, the “victim” had earlier moved the High Court. She was
seeking directions to be made a party in the ongoing suo motu case on
“monitoring the progress of matters pending against the MP/MLAs”.
Appearing before the
Bench, Munjal had submitted that complete list of cases pending against sitting
MLA from the Atam Nagar Assembly constituency, Simarjeet Singh Bains, had not
been furnished by the state. This apart, he submitted that investigation had
hardly made progress in any of the cases pending against him.
It should be noted
that totally 27 First Information Reports (FIRs) were registered against Bains
of which 17 are still pending investigation or trial while in 10 cases he was
acquitted or cancellation reports filed, as per an affidavit filed by Punjab
Police.
Cases against several MPs and MLAs are pending in Punjab.