HC to rehear 30-yr-old triple murder case today

THE DELHI High Court on Monday will hear a plea requesting the transfer of the “oldest identified case” pertaining to a 30-year-old triple murder allegedly involving former Punjab Police Chief Sumedh Singh Saini.

The plea—listed before justice Jyoti Singh on April 8 — was moved by Ashish Kumar, whose brother and brother-in-law were among those allegedly murdered. The case pertains to alleged involvement of Saini, the then Ludhiana SSP, in the kidnapping and murder of three persons in Ludhiana in 1994.

According to the cbi, the three men were murdered at the behest of Saini to settle a personal score against the owners of Saini Motors, an automobile dealership in Punjab. The two deceased — Vinod and Ashok — were financiers to Saini Motors.

The plea, filed through advocate Priyadarshini, has sought the transfer of the case from the court of Special Judge Sunena Sharma in Rouse Avenue to the court of Additional District Judge Naresh Kumar Laka, who has now been transferred to Tis Hazari. Judge Laka had heard the final arguments in the case for five days before he was transferred to Tis Hazari on March 19. The new Judge will rehear the case, and a further delay would be caused.

A sitting Judge of Punjab and Ha ryan ahc, who was hearing the case in 1995, had alleged that he was “threatened”. The case was then transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court in 2004, and has been heard by over 15 judges so far, said as hi sh kumar. as reported by The Indian Express, a Delhi HC judge in 2009 pulled out of hearing the case after allegations by Kumar’s mother (now dead) that the Judge and Saini were “presumably good friends”. Amar Kaur, who was then 91 years, had written to the Delhi HC’S judge, Justice Sunil Gaur, she “doesn’t have faith in him” and he should recuse himself from the case.

“When the matter started, I was a young man and today I am a senior citizen, I hope to see the matter decided in my lifetime so that the ones guilty are punished for their wrongdoing and justice is done to the people who have died,” wrote Ashish Kumar in a letter dated March 22 to CJI DY Chandrachud, hopeful of receiving justice even after 30 years of the incident.