Chandigarh December 6:
More than three years after two Amritsar medical college students were “murdered”, the special investigating team has not reached a “definite conclusion” on Deepak Mangla’s death. It has also not concluded Shashi Bhushan’s death was a murder.
With this, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has fixed a three-month deadline for the SIT to submit its final report. Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia also refused to hand over the cases to the CBI. It “may not be effective,” the Bench has ruled.
“A period of about four years is going to elapse. At this juncture, when considerable delay has already taken place, we are of the opinion that the investigation by CBI may also not yield any fruitful results,” the Bench added. The directions came out of a petition by Sarabjit Singh for comprehensive investigation into the "murders".
Going into the background, the Bench asserted: “Two students of Government Medical College, Amritsar, Shashi Bhushan and Deepak Mangla, died an unnatural death in the months of December 2006 and February 2007 respectively. The dead bodies were found in the college campus.
“In the writ petition, it was alleged one Arun Dalal, son of Dr JS Dalal, principal of the college, had a role to play in the unnatural death of both the medical students, which according to the petitioner was nothing but culpable homicide amounting to murder”. A third-year MBBS student in 2007, Mangla’s body was found in the college hostel on February 1, 2007.
Both the Patiala chemical examiner and medical board were of the opinion a chlorocompound group of insecticide was detected in the viscera; and the cause of death was failure of the brain due to its consumption. Subsequently, after a lapse of about two years FIR number 243 was registered on June 19, 2009, at police station Civil Lines, Amritsar, under Sections 302 and 34 of the IPC. Shashi Bhushan’s body was discovered on November 28, 2006, in a gutter of the Pathology Department and FIR number 423 dated August 22, 2008, was registered.
The Bench ruled since the SIT in FIR number 243 has proposed to file an untraced report, and in FIR number 423 recommended the submission of a cancellation report, “we order the SIT shall submit its final report in both the cases to the area magistrate concerned within three months….” The Bench added the area magistrate “shall issue a notice to the complainant and afford an opportunity of hearing to him, so that he is able to file the protest petition, if so advised.”
More than three years after two Amritsar medical college students were “murdered”, the special investigating team has not reached a “definite conclusion” on Deepak Mangla’s death. It has also not concluded Shashi Bhushan’s death was a murder.
With this, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has fixed a three-month deadline for the SIT to submit its final report. Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia also refused to hand over the cases to the CBI. It “may not be effective,” the Bench has ruled.
“A period of about four years is going to elapse. At this juncture, when considerable delay has already taken place, we are of the opinion that the investigation by CBI may also not yield any fruitful results,” the Bench added. The directions came out of a petition by Sarabjit Singh for comprehensive investigation into the "murders".
Going into the background, the Bench asserted: “Two students of Government Medical College, Amritsar, Shashi Bhushan and Deepak Mangla, died an unnatural death in the months of December 2006 and February 2007 respectively. The dead bodies were found in the college campus.
“In the writ petition, it was alleged one Arun Dalal, son of Dr JS Dalal, principal of the college, had a role to play in the unnatural death of both the medical students, which according to the petitioner was nothing but culpable homicide amounting to murder”. A third-year MBBS student in 2007, Mangla’s body was found in the college hostel on February 1, 2007.
Both the Patiala chemical examiner and medical board were of the opinion a chlorocompound group of insecticide was detected in the viscera; and the cause of death was failure of the brain due to its consumption. Subsequently, after a lapse of about two years FIR number 243 was registered on June 19, 2009, at police station Civil Lines, Amritsar, under Sections 302 and 34 of the IPC. Shashi Bhushan’s body was discovered on November 28, 2006, in a gutter of the Pathology Department and FIR number 423 dated August 22, 2008, was registered.
The Bench ruled since the SIT in FIR number 243 has proposed to file an untraced report, and in FIR number 423 recommended the submission of a cancellation report, “we order the SIT shall submit its final report in both the cases to the area magistrate concerned within three months….” The Bench added the area magistrate “shall issue a notice to the complainant and afford an opportunity of hearing to him, so that he is able to file the protest petition, if so advised.”
