The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday dismissed former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini’s two pleas including an anticipatory bail plea in the 1991 Balwant Singh Multani disappearance case.
A bench of Justice Fatehdeep Singh had reserved its orders on both the pleas on Monday.
The court has dismissed both the pleas of the former Director General of Police, said special public prosecutor Sartej Singh Narula on Tuesday.
Besides an anticipatory bail plea in the matter, Saini had also filed a petition in the high court seeking either quashing of the case or transfer of the matter to the CBI.
Saini was booked in May in connection with the disappearance of Multani in 1991 when he was working as a junior engineer with the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation.
Saini had approached the high court after a Mohali court dismissed his bail plea in this case on September 1.
The Punjab police on September 3 had claimed that Saini had absconded while denying his wife’s claims of withdrawal of his security cover.
Saini faces arrest as a Mohali court had on August 21 allowed the Punjab police to add a murder charge against him in this case.
This came after two former Chandigarh police personnel, former UT police Inspector Jagir Singh and former ASI Kuldeep Singh, who are also co-accused, turned approver in the disappearance case.
Multani, who was a resident of Mohali, was picked up by police after a terrorist attack on Saini, who was then the senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh, in 1991. However, the police had later claimed that Multani had escaped from police custody of Qadian police in Gurdaspur.
Saini and six others were booked on the complaint of Balwant Multani’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, who is a resident of Jalandhar.
The case was registered against them under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causes hurt) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at Mataur police station in Mohali.
