The order by Justice Amol Rattan Singh has been passed to verify the contents of an FIR registered by the Nawanshahr Police in January.
IN AN alleged case of drug planting by Punjab Police, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in order to check the exact location of the police party had made the recovery of contraband during a routine patrolling, issued a notice to the telecom company Vodafone and directed it to produce the exact information on usage of the mobile number of a police official.
The order by Justice Amol Rattan Singh has been passed to verify the contents of an FIR registered by the Nawanshahr Police in January. Mukhandpur Police Station in January had registered a case against the accused Ashok Kumar for alleged recovery of 15 injections of Buprenorphine and 15 injections of Avil from his Swift Car during a routine patrolling. Kumar is said to have fled from the spot when the recovery was made.
In his plea before the High Court, Kumar has said that he was not even arrested from the spot and is being falsely implicated by Police. He has also said the raid had actually taken place at his home and there was no recovery of contraband.
“The actual computer print out showing usage of telephone no.Xxx (stated to have been used by HC Jaswinder), shall be produced in Court showing, in continuous running form, the usage of the phone before and after 14:21:07 hours and 20:17:44 hours, starting from January 22, 2018 going upto January 24, 2018,” the order passed by the bench reads.
The notice has been issued to Vodafone’s Regional Manager who has been directed by the bench to also submit an affidavit, along with the print out, stating that it is true continuous print out of the usage of the phone.
“It is further made absolutely clear that any attempt to show a broken print out / a disjointed print out, shall be treated to be a violation of this order and shall be dealt with as such,” the order reads.
The call detail records of other three police officers have already been submitted in the High Court by the Police department along with the phone records of Kumar which show him present in village Aur/ Garopar at the time of stated raid of police around 10:00 am. However, HC Jaswinder’s tower location have not been yet submitted in the court.
Following the recovery of drugs, Jaswinder is said to have taken the information or ruqa to police station for registration of the case. According to the Police, he left the spot around 2:05 pm on the same day. He had to seek the lift to reach the police station as the police vehicle was sent after the accused, who had fled the spot. The FIR was registered around 3 PM. The police had attributed Jaswinder’s delay in reaching the police station to unavailability of the vehicle.
Vodafone had earlier told the police that Jaswinder’s exact tower location cannot be made available as he had not used the mobile phone during the time period.
However, the police had earlier submitted the call records of Jaswinder’s phone during that period before the court in August. Due to the discrepancy, the High Court has directly sought the information from Vodafone.