Chandigarh, Dec 24 (PTI) The Punjab and Haryana High Court has suspended the life imprisonment of former Himachal Pradesh IGP Zahur Haider Zaidi in the 2017 custodial death case of an accused in the gang
rape and murder of a girl in the hill state.
Zaidi, along with seven other policemen, was awarded life imprisonment by a special CBI court in Chandigarh in January in the custodial death case of Suraj, who was found dead at the Kotkhai police station in Himachal Pradesh on July 18, 2017.
A 16-year-old girl went missing in Kotkhai on July 4, 2017, and her body was found in the Halaila forests on July 6. The post-mortem report confirmed rape and murder.
Amid huge public outcry in the state, a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Zaidi was constituted. Suraj was among six people arrested by the SIT.
Justices Anoop Chitkara and Sukhvinder Kaur on Tuesday issued directions for the release of Zaidi and asked him to furnish a bail bond of Rs 25,000.
While granting him relief, the HC noted a lack of motive and prolonged period of incarceration undergone by the officer.
In his plea, the former inspector general of police (IGP) sought the suspension of his sentence, claiming that he was not present at the police station when the custodial death occurred. He said he was already on a pre-sanctioned leave to perform the rituals of his deceased father.
"It appears that the injuries noticed by post-mortem conducted by AIIMS or use of blunt weapons like lathi, iron rod etc. and the injuries on the sole point out towards the usual brutal and crude methods of the police when they (arrested accused) are tortured in custody but certainly accused (Zaidi) was not present in the police station at that time and he cannot be attributed such injuries which were not caused in his presence. Further, there was no motive for the accused to have caused the death of Suraj," the court order stated.
The court further observed that in the entirety of these prima facie analyses coupled with the period of custody already undergone, which is more than 5 years, the officer is entitled to suspension of sentence.
It also noted that the case set up by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for criminal conspiracy was that on July 13, 2017, Zaidi addressed a press conference in which he claimed to have solved the rape and murder case.
"The CBI's allegations are that in that press conference, Zaidi claimed that they had sufficient scientific evidence to substantiate the arrest of the six accused. To justify the false claim made by Zaidi, a conspiracy was hatched to extract confessions.
"This story itself raises a doubt: even if the investigators were able to extract confessions as desired, such confessions could not have been construed as scientific evidence," it said.
The HC clarified that the observations made hereinabove are only for the purpose of deciding the present suspension application, and it shall not be construed as an expression of opinion at the time of deciding the final appeal.
"Given the above, without commenting on the case's merits and in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the matter, the execution of the sentence of imprisonment is suspended till the pendency of the appeal," it said.
After Suraj's death in custody in 2017, the then Himachal Pradesh government handed over the investigation in both cases to the CBI. The central agency then arrested Zaidi and other policemen in connection with the custodial death.
The CBI charge-sheeted the accused police officials for criminal conspiracy, murder, fabrication of false evidence, destruction of evidence, torture in police custody for extracting a confession and preparation of false records.
In May 2019, the Supreme Court transferred the case related to the custodial death from Shimla to Chandigarh. PTI CHS VSD DIV
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