Court has power to direct further investigations

CHANDIGARH, Nov 3: Continuing with the hearing of arguments in the case pertaining to sale of three sugar mills to private parties in Punjab...

CHANDIGARH, Nov 3: Continuing with the hearing of arguments in the case pertaining to sale of three sugar mills to private parties in Punjab, Justice Swatanter Kumar today observed that the court had powers to direct further investigations in case it was not satisfied with the investigation reports.

This observation was made by the judge when the discussion on the question of whether the court had the jurisdiction to intervene in the sugar mills case, where investigations revealed two contradictory reports.

Earlier, the counsel for Northland Sugar which had purchased the Dasuya Sugar Mill brought before the court that investigations in a case were excluded from the court’s jurisdiction and that a charge-sheet could never be ordered by any court.

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At this, the judge sought to know if the courts were powerless even if officers defrauded the courts. The counsel then gave a solution that the court could pass on both the investigation reports to the court of competent jurisdiction for further action.

Before adjourning the case to tomorrow, the judge then sought the comments of the investigating officer in response to the comparative chart presented by the Punjab Government showing the differences in the three reports of the investigating officer (the AIG) in the case.

In the comparative chart, the Punjab Government had pointed out that the investigating officer had recommended criminal action against eight officers and departmental action against three officers, besides also recommending criminal action against the management of the private collaborators who purchased the three sugar mills. On the other hand, the report of the supervisory officers had recommended criminal action only against two officers and departmental action against one officer while bailing out the remaining officers.

The three senior police officers, the Additional Director General of Police, S.V. Singh, the Inspector General of Police, K.K. Attri and the investigating officer, Assistant Inspector General of Police, Gurdarshan Singh were personally present in the court with the relevant records, after they were asked to do so on the last date of hearing. They were directed to produce the records pertaining to their meetings for discussing the investigation reports in the case.