HC summons records of 137 FIRs govt plans to withdraw

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday asked the Haryana government to produce records of 137 FIRs, registered for criminal offences during the Jat quota violence of February 2016, which the latter has decided to withdraw.

The order was passed by the high court bench of justices SS Saron and Avneesh Jhingan after it found inconsistencies in the affidavit filed by the government. A total of 2,100 FIRs were registered for the quota violence, of which the government now wants 137 withdrawn.

For withdrawal of cases, the district attorney must be satisfied as per criminal law. However, it was unclear during the hearing whether the government had obtained the nod or not.

Amicus curiae (friend of the court) Anupam Gupta too pointed out that the list includes nine cases of Meham in Rohtak, which were cited as ‘serious’by former director general of police (DGP) Prakash Singh, who probed the role of officials during the quota violence. “The Punjab government did this during the militancy days. Now, the same thing is being done by Haryana. It is bound to set a bad precedent,” he said.

The government, however, maintained that the decision to withdraw cases was taken on the recommendations of district magistrates and in none of these cases had charges of serious nature.

“It has been done to promote peace between different communities. The state can do so. It is a settled proposition in law,” additional advocate general Pawan Girdhar said.