Chandigarh: Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday transferred the Col Bath assault case to CBI on the army officer’s plea.
Col Pushpinder Singh Bath had moved the high court seeking an independent probe into the matter preferably by the CBI, on the ground that the Chandigarh police had failed to conduct a "fair and free investigation’’; A detailed order of the high court is awaited.
It may be recalled that in a shocking incident, the serving army officer (Col Bath) and his son were brutally beaten up on March 13 night, by four inspector-rank Punjab police officers and their subordinates over a parking dispute without provocation, all in public view and under CCTV surveillance in Patiala, who also snatched his ID card and mobile phone and issuing threats of fake encounters.
Col Bath, currently serving at a "sensitive post under the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India’’, and his son had stopped for a meal at a roadside eatery near Government Rajindra Hospital in Patiala when the incident happened.
The high court directions came two days after Justice Rajesh Bhardwaj admonished the Chandigarh police for its failure to arrest any of the accused Punjab police personnel and held that the conduct of the police amounted to "setting the wrong example’’ and protecting the accused. The court also orally observed that the special investigation team is creating loopholes to give benefit of doubt to the accused officers.
Col Bath in his petition said that the investigation of the case was transferred from Patiala police to Chandigarh police on April 2. "It is being stated with utmost disappointment that even despite lapse of more than three and half months of the registration of the FIR and lapse of three months since the investigation has been handed over the Chandigarh police, neither a single accused has been arrested so far nor any accused has been associated with the investigation’’, he said.
Col Bath held in his petition that the facts pointed towards pressure being exerted upon the Chandigarh police by the ``top brass’’ of the Punjab police.
