Sacrilege probe report: Depute officer to assist court, CBI told

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to depute a senior officer to assist the Bench during the hearing of petitions against proceedings in pursuance to recommendations made by the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission set up to probe the cases of sacrilege in the state.

Taking up the matter, Justice Rajan Gupta fixed the hearing on Friday for the presence of the officer before the Bench for elucidating upon the intrinsic facts of the cases. One of the petitions before Justice Gupta’s Bench is regarding four cases in which CBI probe was ordered before the decision was reversed.

The matter was brought to the High Court’s notice on a petition filed against the Punjab Legislative Assembly and other respondents by police officer Shamsher Singh through counsel Sant Pal Singh Sidhu.

Challenging the impugned resolution dated August 28 passed by the Legislative Assembly, the counsel for the petitioner had submitted that it was unsustainable as reasons were not assigned therein for reviewing the decision taken earlier to hand over the investigation to the premier investigating agency.

He had said the probe was required to be entrusted to an independent agency like the CBI “as the abuse and misuse of law, power and authority was writ large”. He also submitted that free, fair, impartial and unbiased investigation was “not expected from the Punjab Police, keeping in view the facts and circumstances”.

Justice Gupta had posed a query to the counsel about the scope of judicial review of a decision taken by the legislative body of the state. Responding to the query, the counsel had referred to the judgment passed by the apex court in the case of “Raja Ram Pal versus Lok Sabha Speaker” before contending that the legislative entities were not immune from judicial review.

He had added that the orders passed by them assumed the character of judicial or quasi-judicial decisions which judicature was not prevented from scrutiny. “The validity of the action of the legislature is subject to judicial review if it trespasses on the fundamental rights conferred on the citizens,” he had added.