Parallel SIT probe is illegal: CBI to HC

AGENCY WAS RESPONDING TO A PLEA FILED BY A DERA FOLLOWER, WHO IS AMONG THE ACCUSED IN THE CHALLAN FILED BY THE SIT IN JULY

CHANDIGARH: Terming the parallel probe launched by Punjab police as ‘illegal’, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has demanded that the special investigation team (SIT) probing sacrilege cases be restrained from conducting it.

The CBI has responded to a plea in high court filed by one Sukhjinder Sngh, alias Sunny, a follower of Dera Sacha Sauda, who is among the accused persons against whom challan was filed by the SIT in July.

He had challenged the challan presented by SIT probing the incidents. In the FIR registered on June 2, 2015, he is accused of theft of Bir of Guru Granth Sahib from Gurudwara of Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village on June 1, 2015.

The FIR was registered for hurting religious sentiments and theft.

He had argued that two agencies can’t launch a parallel probe in an FIR.

The CBI’s response is to be taken up by a court on Tuesday.

The agency says that it registered a case pursuant to a notification for the same by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India. While the probe was on, the Punjab assembly passed a resolution in 2019 that cases should be taken back and be given to SIT.

Pursuant to this, the government withdrew consent. However, DoPT, so far, has not rescinded the notification and same is still in existence, authorising the CBI to conduct its probe, the agency says.

It has submitted that the CBI conducted the probe in professional and scientific manner, but it could not find any clue in these three cases and filed a closure report in July 2019.

But, Punjab police forwarded some fresh leads following this development following which a Mohali court, hearing these cases, has been informed that the closure report be kept in abeyance, the court has been told.

It was argued that consent granted for CBI probe can’t be taken back by the state. “There is no provision in Delhi Special Establishment Act, 1946, to withdraw or de-notify the notification ..... once issued,” it says adding that the agency is carrying out the probe and parallel probe by SIT in these three cases, being illegal be stayed and challan submitted in one FIR, be quashed.