WITH NO major breakthrough in the rape and murder case of a minor girl at Kotkhai in July, the Himachal Pradesh High Court Wednesday pulled up the agency before granting it two weeks’ time for filing a status report. The court conveyed its displeasure to the CBI officers, who were present in the courtroom, over the slow pace of the investigations and said the people of the state and also those across the country, were keenly awaiting the outcome of the probe. A special bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Sharma asked the CBI’s lawyer Anshul Bansal to state specific reasons for seeking further time in the case. If the agency is unable to do anything, it should tell the court without taking much time, the acting CJ observed.
The court fixed the next date of hearing on September 21 directing the CBI to file a fresh status report on investigations in the case. Earlier, when the court assembled for a hearing on a PIL, the CBI submitted a status report relating to the progress made so far in the case, including in the custodial death investigation as part of which the agency had arrested eight police officers, including IGP Zahur H Zaidi, DSP (Theog) Manoj Joshi and SHO of Kotkhai station. The CBI counsel pleaded to the court not to make the status report public since investigations were still under way. In fact, this was the third status report submitted in the court.
The CBI’s lawyer informed the court that the agency had taken permission of the district court for conducting lie-detector test on the five accused, who were in judicial custody. They are required to be taken to Ahmedabad for the ‘brain-mapping ‘ test and it would take two-three weeks to complete the process and get the reports, Bansal told the court.
The bench was informed that in the case of custodial death of Suraj Singh, the investigations were almost complete and the CBI would soon be filing the challan in the court for trial.
The court made clear observations that the CBI should show progress as soon as possible . The case was referred to the CBI on July 19 — a day after custodial death and violence erupting in major towns including Shimla, Kotkhai and Theog against the police not arresting the real culprits and thereafter allegedly causing death of Suraj Singh, one of the six accused arrested in the case on July 13 by the police SIT headed by Zahur Zaidi.
