Replying to the Punjab Police’s application, the CBI said before the court that the agency had registered the FIR in the case in 2008 on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and conducted preliminary inquiry.

The Punjab Police on Saturday moved an application in the Chandigarh special CBI Court seeking documents of the 29-year-old case of the kidnapping of Balwant Singh Multani, son of the then IAS officer DS Multani.

As investigation in the case was carried out by the CBI in 2007, the Punjab Police in an application submitted to the special CBI Court of JMIC Ravish Kaushik, mentioned that the report of the preliminary inquiry conducted by the CBI in the case should be handed over to them as they have restarted investigation in the case.

Replying to the Punjab Police’s application, the CBI said before the court that the agency had registered the FIR in the case in 2008 on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and conducted preliminary inquiry. However, the FIR was quashed by the Supreme Court on technical grounds in 2011.

The CBI Counsel further said that the agency keeps a record of old cases for five years and destroys the same after five years. The CBI had conducted preliminary enquiry in the case 12 years ago and collected documents and information from various departments, however, as the FIR was quashed in 2011, the documents were returned to the concerned departments and the agency at present did not have possession of any record pertaining to the case.

The CBI Court scheduled the matter for hearing on Monday.

As per records, on May 6, a case was filed against the former DGP and six other policemen regarding the disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani, who was a junior engineer with the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation. The son of a then serving IAS officer D S Multani, Balwant continues to be missing and his family suspects he has been eliminated.

Balwant was allegedly picked up by police after a bomb attack on Saini, who was the senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh, in 1991. Saini was seriously injured in the blast.

Amid allegations that Balwant was falsely implicated and brutally tortured at the behest of Saini, a Punjab and Haryana High Court bench in 2007 had directed the CBI to conduct a probe. A year later, the CBI had booked Saini, then Chandigarh DSP Baldev Singh Saini, then SIs posted at Sector 17 Central Police Station Harsahai Sharma and Jagir Singh and other police officials under various sections including kidnapping with intention to murder.

However, the CBI’s FIR was quashed by the Supreme Court in 2011. Palwinder said that the CBI’s FIR was quashed on “technical grounds”, leaving it open that complainant “may take recourse to fresh proceedings, if permissible under the law”.