SC brings down curtain on DIG Joginder Singh Anand death case after 38 years

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 29

The Supreme Court on Monday brought down the curtain on the 38-year-old DIG Joginder Singh Anand death case as it dismissed the CBI’s petition challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict acquitting his wife Indu Anand, their son Sumanjit Singh ‘Nikki’ and nephew Sandeep Singh ‘Sandy’.

The deceased DIG was a relative of senior BJP leader and former union minister Maneka Gandhi. Sumanjit was just 17 and Sandeep 18 at the time of the incident.

“The Special Leave Petition is dismissed. Pending application stands disposed of,” a Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice MM Sundresh said, rejecting the CBI’s petition against the March 23, 2017 verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The order came after senior counsel Kapil Sibal, representing Indu Anand, pointed out that the main witness domestic help Darshan Lal was tutored by the CBI to implicate Indu Anand and other family members.

“The family has undergone trauma for such a long time. The lady Indu Anand is now 78-year-old…The High Court’s judgment is very well written…it brings out everything clearly. The CBI clearly overreached,” Sibal told The Tribune.

“The CBI manipulated Darshan Lal who changed his statement within days. On July 16 and 17 (1983), he told the Police that the DIG walked alone to the lake. On 23rd July (1983), he recorded a statement implicating the family members. The court didn’t find it trustworthy,” Sibal said.

DIG Anand was allegedly found “drowned” in Sukhna Lake in the night intervening July 12 and 13, 1983. Based on the testimony of their domestic help Darshan Lal, the CBI alleged that during a quarrel in the family at their Sector 3 house in Chandigarh the DIG got injured and was presumed to be dead. He was thrown into Sukhna Lake resulting in his death by drowning, the agency alleged.

The police initially claimed that the DIG (47) had committed suicide. Later, the probe was transferred to the CBI which registered a case on July 23, 1983.

Indu claimed she had left the house immediately after the quarrel and was not present when the CBI claimed she was assaulting Anand physically.

A Sessions Court had on March 11, 1996 held Indu Anand and her sons Sumanjit and Sandeep guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 - part II of the IPC and sentenced them to two-year imprisonment. Darshan Lal was granted pardon by a Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court, Chandigarh.

Terming the trial court order as perverse, the high court had allowed the appeals filed by his wife, son and nephew and pulled up the CBI for being “unfair” to them. The CBI had challenged the verdict before the top court.