Punjab Police on Monday moved a fresh application in the Chandigarh special CBI court pertaining to the investigation of the 29-year-old kidnapping case of the son of an IAS officer. (Representational Image)

Punjab Police on Monday moved a fresh application in the Chandigarh special CBI court, mentioning a status report filed in 2016 in Punjab and Haryana High Court, pertaining to the investigation of the 29-year-old kidnapping case of Balwant Singh Multani, son of then IAS officer DS Multani. The second application regarding the matter was filed in the special CBI Court of JMIC Ravish Kaushik. CBI has been asked to file a reply by June 11.

In its application, the Punjab Police mentioned that in the 2016, while probing the matter, CBI had submitted a status report related to the case following a miscellaneous application. However, since the FIR was quashed by the apex court, the High Court had directed to return the status report to CBI again. Police also mentioned in their application that the status report had documents related to preliminary investigation by CBI. After hearing the plea of the Punjab

Police, the CBI court asked CBI to file a reply. The matter will be heard on June 11.

In reply to an earlier application submitted by Punjab Police in CBI Court for getting the documents related to the case, CBI had said that the agency keeps record of old cases for five years.

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. Balwant is still 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 High Court bench in 2007 had directed 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. However, CBI’s FIR was quashed by Supreme Court in 2011. Palwinder said FIR was quashed on “technical grounds”, leaving it open that complainant “may take recourse to fresh proceedings, if permissible under law”.