Gurgaon: The Haryana government’s decision to decline prosecution sanction against four police officers who were chargesheeted by CBI for implicating a school bus conductor in the murder of a Class II student in 2017, allegedly by a senior, has been challenged in the Punjab and Haryana high court by the boy’s father. In December, the CBI filed the supplementary chargesheet against the four cops in the case.
In September 2017, the seven-year-old boy was found with his throat slit inside his school, after which Ashok Kumar, the conductor, was arrested. Later, the CBI detained a teenager and, in its first chargesheet in 2018, gave a clean chit to Kumar. In its supplementary chargesheet, the CBI said then ACP Birem Singh, then Bhondsi SHO Narender Khatana, then investigating officer Shamsher Singh and ASI Subhash Chand not only “tortured and criminally intimidated” Kumar but also fabricated evidence against him. Last month, the state government refused to give prosecution sanction against the four policemen on the grounds that they made some error in investigation but there was no fault in their intent. This was after a special CBI court in Panchkula had rapped the government over the delay in granting prosecution sanction, saying it’s “sleeping like Kumbhakarana”. Sushil Tekriwal, counsel for the boy’s father, said they had filed a petition in HC, seeking to quash the order passed by state declining prosecution sanction.
“The petition was filed by the father not only seeking justice against offenders, including the accused in this case, but also propagating the cause of justice. In this case, the theory of sexual exploitation was falsely propounded by the police.”