Suspended Punjab Deputy Inspector General of Police Harcharan Singh Bhullar and his conduit Kirshanu Sharda have told a Chandigarh Special CBI Court that they apprehended something incriminating may be planted upon them by the ED and the CBI.
The two accused, produced before Special CBI Judge Bhawna Jain through video conferencing, stated that the ED had raided their premises despite the CBI having already conducted searches there twice and taken away all relevant material. They flagged their apprehension before the court, which allowed their respective counsel to move an appropriate application regarding the same, if they so chose.
The court, however, declined a separate request of the accused to be produced in person before it on every date of hearing, holding the same not feasible at this stage.
The development comes after the ED registered a fresh Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against Bhullar and others and carried out simultaneous searches at 11 premises to trace proceeds of crime, identify benami assets and gather evidence of money laundering.
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DAY-TO-DAY TRIAL DECISION TODAY
On the CBI’s application under Section 4 of the Prevention of Corruption Act seeking expeditious commencement and day-to-day trial of the main bribery case, the defence was granted time to file its reply, which is now due on April 30.
Two fresh interlocutory applications, filed separately on behalf of Bhullar and Sharda, seeking a direction to the prosecution to place on record the list of unrelied statements, documents and articles seized during investigation, were disposed of after the CBI’s public prosecutor placed on record a copy of unrelied documents and articles. The prosecutor stated that, as informed by the Investigating Officer, there were no unrelied witness statements.
Arguments on two earlier applications were heard, and both were dismissed vide a separate order of the same date.
The defence counsel also requested that data supplied to the accused on April 24 be scrutinised by the next date of hearing, which the court allowed