CBI COURT TURNS DOWN PLEA TO NAME SHO AS ACCUSED

CHANDIGARH : Taking note of UT DIG’S refusal to sanction the prosecution of suspended SHO Jaswinder Kaur in a 2017 graft case, a special CBI court on Wednesday disposed of the application seeking her inclusion as accused.

“This court cannot take cognisance of the offence against the proposed accused Jaswinder Kaur as the sanction for prosecution has been declined by the Chandigarh Police DIG who is the competent authority in the matter,” the order by Sushil Kumar Garg, special judge, CBI, stated.

Earlier CBI’S public prosecutor KP Singh argued, “It is not the duty of the competent authority to see as to whether there is sufficient material for conviction or acquittal of the said accused at the stage of granting or declining sanction for prosecution.”

The complainant, Prem Singh Bisht, who corroborated the contents of his complaint verbatim in court, stated that the DIG had not considered his evidence. The prosecutor argued that the complainant in his examination-inchief had reiterated that face-toface conversation had taken placed between him and SHO Kaur and another accused, subinspector Mohan Singh, where Kaur had told him to fulfil the demand for ₹9 lakh bribe.

The graft case dates back to October 2017, when SI Singh was arrested for accepting ₹2 lakh in bribe, allegedly on the directions of Kaur, the then Sector 31 SHO,