Chandigarh: High Court puts Sec 31 SHO on notice

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 17

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has put the Station House Officer (SHO) of the Sector 31 police station Narinder Patyal on notice on a petition alleging contempt of court filed by a local builder. Taking up the matter, Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu also fixed December 20 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

The notice came on the petition filed by Ram Lal Chaudhary through counsel Navkiran Singh. Appearing before Justice Sidhu’s Bench, he stated that Chaudhary was picked up by the police illegally in violation of the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in the case of “Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar”.

Elaborating, Navkiran Singh contended that the judgment made it clear that a notice under Section 41-A of the CrPC was mandatory for offences where the punishment was up to seven years. He added that the petitioner was being “falsely implicated in a false case of cheating” under Section 420 of the IPC, for which the punishment was up to seven years. As such, the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar’s case were applicable to the present matter.

Navkiran Singh added the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in the “Lalita Kumari versus State of UP” had also been violated in the case as the matter pertained to commercial/monetary transactions for which preliminary inquiry was required to have been conducted. Besides this, there was an undue delay of five years in lodging the complaint, which was unjustified and unreasoned. “Without any inquiry or any notice, the petitioner has been straight away picked up from his office even prior to the registration of the FIR and has been illegally detained and, hence, respondents in this way have violated the guidelines of the Supreme Court,” added Navkiran.