New Delhi , June 16— The Supreme Court has refused to quash murder charges against nine Punjab police personnel accused in an alleged fake encounter, asserting that shooting at a civilian vehicle in plain clothes cannot be considered part of official duty or lawful arrest.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, in an order dated April 29 and recently uploaded, upheld the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s 2019 ruling declining to drop the charges. The apex court also restored the charge of destruction of evidence against then Deputy Commissioner of Police Parampal Singh, who allegedly directed the removal of the number plate from the vehicle involved in the 2015 shooting incident that left a driver dead.
“The petitioners stand accused of surrounding a civilian vehicle in plain clothes and jointly firing on its occupant. Such conduct, by its very nature, bears no reasonable nexus to the duties of maintaining public order or effecting lawful arrest,” the court ruled.
The plea by eight of the nine policemen had argued that criminal proceedings were impermissible without prior government sanction under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which protects public servants from prosecution for acts done in the course of duty. The court rejected this contention outright, stating, “Equally untenable is the submission that cognisance was barred for want of sanction under Section 197 of the CrPC.”
According to the criminal complaint, the officers, dressed in civilian clothes, intercepted the car, exited their vehicles with firearms, and opened fire together, fatally injuring the driver. The court noted that two eyewitness accounts corroborated the allegations and added weight to the case.
Further, the Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed on the orders of senior police officers, found the version of self-defence mentioned in the FIR to be fabricated. The SIT had recommended the prosecution of eight officers on charges of culpable homicide.
With this judgment, the Supreme Court has cleared the path for criminal trial proceedings to move forward against the accused officers, reaffirming that misuse of power by law enforcement cannot be shielded under the guise of official duty.
