STATE Vs. MEHAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the afternoon of 31-3-1971. Shri Ranjodh Singh (since deceased) of village Badni Kalan, Police Station Nihalsinghwala in Ferozepore district was travelling in a car and when he had gone about a furlong or two beyond Phulewala Road culvert, his car was waylaid and he was murdered with fire weapons. His son Kanwar Iqbal Singh, who claimed to have been travelling in the same car and who had some simple blunt weapon injuries on his person lodged a report at 3. 50 P. M. at police Station Baghapurana which had jurisdiction in the area. The occurrence was described to have taken place about twenty minutes earlier and according to the story as given in that first information report, the deceased and his party had set out in three motor vehicles as the betrothal of the daughter of the deceased was to take place that day in village Mudki. Fourteen Persons belonging to different villages in the districts of Ludhiana. Sangrur and Ferozepore were named as the assailants and it was alleged that they had come to the scene of ambush in two cars which were seen parked by the road side and that these assailants had opened fire on the deceased's car from both sides of the road. Balbir Singh, the driver of the car. had lost control and had crashed against a tree and had also sustained a head injury Out of the named assailants six persons had been arrested within a fortnight of the occurrence and had been lingering in jail until the police report (chalan) under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had been filed in Court on 25-10-1971. There is nothing on record to suggest that they have been granted bail to the present day. During the interval between their arrest and the filing of the chalan. they had been produced before the Ilaqa Magistrates for remands to police custody or to judicial lock-up very nearly a score of times and the Magistrate had directed on 16-10-1971. at the time of granting the remand up to 29-10-1971, that the police should expedite the submission of the chalan. The Additional Sessions Judge had also directed, while rejecting a bail application of these six accused. that the chalan should be filed before 25-10-1971, The Station House Officer incharge of Police Station Bagha purana had accordingly complied with these directions in actually filing the chalan on 25-101971 even though the higher police officers including Shri Vidyasagar Mehta. D. S. P. and Beniwal. S. P. (C. I. D.) had taken over the investigations of this case in accordance with the instructions issued in June, 1971, by the Deputy Inspector General (C. I. D.) of Police. who had ordered further in August, 1971 that the chalan was not to be presented in Court unless his orders had been obtained in the first instance. The D. I. G. had also recommended that warrants of arrest issued by the Court against some of the accused should be got cancelled. There 'were references in the police diary that Shri Vidya Sagar. D. S. P. had visited some places including Calcutta in connection with the investigations of this case. It mavappear from the police diaries and many other documents on the lower Court's records that most of the persons named in the first information report as assailants were working for gain in Calcutta. The chalan filed on 25-10-1971 was against the six persons who had been arrested more than six months earlier and the names of the other eight were shown as absconders in the chalan. It cannot be said however, that these eight persons were really fugitives from the law even though the Court had at one stage issued warrants for their arrest and had started proceedings under Sections 87 and 88 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, This would be evident from the fact that the informant Kanwar Iqbal Singh and his brother Bhupinder Singh had been making applications to the Ilaqa Magistrates for taking contempt proceedings against Shri Mehta. D. S. P. complaining that most of these persons shown as absconders in the police chalan had actually appeared before the D. S, P, and had not been taken in custody. According to the reply dated 30-7-1971 filed by Shri Mehta he had taken over the investigations of the case on the orders of the S. S. P. Ferozepore and that six persons out of the eight now shown as absconders had appeared before him on 15-6-1971, before the file of the case had been entrusted to him and that he had recorded their statements. Five of them had produced documentary evidence in support of their pleas of alibi and the sixth had stated that he was a prosecution witness against Kanwar Iqbal Singh informant in a criminal case at Calcutta and that he had been falsely implicated in this case because he had resisted all attempts of Kanwar Iqbal Singh to win him over and to resile from his statement in the criminal case pending in Calcutta. The parties have a background of long drawn out litigation and enmities.

(2.) IN view of the circumstances mentioned above the Prosecuting Inspector of Police filed an application dated 27-11-1971. before the Magistrate holding the commitment inquiry, alleging that the police investigations were still inconclusive when the chalan had been filed by the S. H. O. on 25-10-1971 and that material information may be forthcoming to show the innocence of some of the accused and the complicity of some others. It was therefore, requested that in the interests of justice the S. P. (C. I. D.) may be allowed to investigate the case further so that the police report under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could be legally finalised. The inherent powers of the Court were invoked in the ends of justice. It would not be out of place to mention at this stage that no evidence had been recorded during the commitment inquiry when this application was made by the Prosecuting Inspector of Police.

(3.) THE learned Committing Magistrate dismissed this application for permission to further investigate the case by this order dated 30-111971, which is now under revision. Reliance was mainly placed by him on a Single Bench decision given by our learned brother, S. C. Mital J. , in Kulwant Singh v. Senior Superintendent of Police 1970-72 Pun LR 33. The Sessions Judge has however recommended that the order D/30-11-71 of the Committing Magistrate should be revised and set aside. This case of recommended devision came up in the first instance before a Single Bench of this Court but because of a conflict of views amongst the various High Courts, the case has ultimately been referred to a Full Bench. That is how we are now seized of the case.