DSP Raka Ghira’s plea in graft case rejected, slapped fine

THE SPECIAL CBI court on Friday dismissed the application of Punjab Police DSP Raka Ghira, who has been booked by CBI in a case of graft. The court has also imposed a penalty of Rs 2,000 on Ghira for filing senseless applications in court. The DSP had filed an application in the CBI court with a plea that the FIR for the graft case against her shall be quashed as she had been falsely implicated and arrested without jurisdiction by the CBI.

Ghira’s counsel SPS Bhullar said her application stated that CBI sleuths went beyond their jurisdiction to arrest her. The application stated that she had been working with Punjab Police and the CBI had no jurisdiction to arrest her and so the FIR against her should be quashed. However, considering Ghira’s application as shallow, the court on Friday dismissed it by imposing a cost of Rs 2,000 on her, terming it as wasting court’s time.

In 2011, following a trap laid by CBI, the DSP was arrested on charges of demanding and taking bribe worth Rs 1 lakh from a builder, K K Malhotra, for settling his case. Malhotra, in his complaint to the CBI, alleged that Ghira had been harassing him and demanded a bribe of Rs 2 lakh to free him from all cases. According to sources, Ghira was supervising two inquiries registered against Malhotra under the Land Acquisition Act.

Ghira was inducted into the Punjab Police as an inspector on compassionate grounds after her husband Ranbir Singh, a DSP, died in a road accident in 1999.