Interview with Lawrence Bishnoi: High Court suspends trial proceedings

Taking seriously reports that the Punjab Police filed a ‘cancellation report’ in the FIR registered on January 5 in connection with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s interview aired by a private channel, the High Court on Wednesday stayed the proceedings of the Mohali High Court in the case. .

Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and Justice Sudepti Sharma of the High Court, during the hearing on Wednesday, orally questioned the Punjab Police as to why the court was not informed of the findings of the investigation and also asked why a copy of the investigation report was not provided to the court, which they submitted to the trial court.

The scheduled hearing for the case took place on Tuesday, during which the police told the court that the final report had been submitted to the trial court. The court had even appreciated the efforts of the SIT headed by Human Rights Commission DG Prabodh Kumar.

However, as it emerged on Wednesday morning that six charges mentioned in the FIR were dropped and Challan was only booked for a single offense of criminal intimidation on October 9 by the Punjab Police, the hearing of the affair, scheduled for October. Case 28 was ordered to be prepared and the matter was taken up for hearing on Wednesday and all parties involved were summoned for hearing.

The court observed that the hearing in the case took place on Tuesday when the SIT chief filed an affidavit. “In the affidavit, a self-contained note stating the misconduct, negligence and dereliction of duty of the officers concerned had also been annexed.”

“We are now aware that a cancellation report has also been filed with the JMIC, SAS Nagar, on 09.10.2024. It is, however, puzzling to note that the said report was not furnished to this Court on 15.10.2024, when the matter was submitted for hearing. The learned counsel for the State of Punjab has not been able to provide a satisfactory explanation with regard to the heartbreaking rush in filing the cancellation report before JMIC, SAS Nagar,” the court recorded asking counsel to seek the necessary instructions before the adjourned October date. 28.

The court also ordered the SIT chief to file a copy of the inquiry report. “In the meantime, we direct that further proceedings before the JMIC, SAS Nagar, be stayed,” the court ordered.

The controversy concerns two interviews with the gangster broadcast on March 14 and 17, 2023, while he was in Bathinda prison. The Punjab Police had initially denied that these interviews took place within the state. Later, the SIT investigation revealed that one of the interviews was conducted at the Punjab Police premises in Kharar on the intervening night of September 3 and 4, 2022 and the second interview was conducted in Rajasthan. The FIR in the second interview case has now been transferred to Rajasthan.

In interviews, the gangster had claimed that he was not involved in the gruesome, broad daylight murder of prominent Punjabi singer, Sidhu Moose Wala, who was killed in 2022. He had also hinted that he would take revenge on actor Salman Khan for allegedly chasing blackbucks. in Rajasthan in 1998.

The matter came before the courts in September 2023 when they took suo motu note of these interviews, observing that these interviews tend to glorify crime and criminals and could have a negative effect on impressionable minds. The interviews were later deleted, but police told the court that the interviews had been viewed 12 million times on YouTube. The FIR was registered following the directions of the high court in December 2023. The matter was investigated by the SIT constituted by the high court.

The January 5 FIR included seven offenses, 384 (extortion), 201 (concealment of evidence), 202 (intentionally withholding information about an offense), 506 (criminal intimidation), 116 (abetment of offenses punishable by imprisonment) , 120. -b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and 52-A (1) of the Prisons (Punjab Amendment) Act, 2011. The final report filed in a Mohali court on October 9 includes only one section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and only against Bishnoi, who was initially named in the FIR.