New Delhi/ Chandigarh: The Supreme Court of India (SCI) today allowed National Investigative Agency (NIA)’s plea to transfer the trial of cases investigated by the NIA from Punjab to Delhi. NIA has booked Jagtar Singh Johal @ Jaggi, Ramandeep Singh Bagga, Hardeep Singh Shera and others in various cases related to killings of some persons between 2016 and 2017.
The hearing of the matter hardly took 3 minutes from formal opening of the matter to the closure. Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, who is defence lawyer of Hardeep Singh Shera and Ramandeep Singh Bagga and others in the trial court confirmed the development.
The matter was heard and disposed off today (May 7, 2019) by the bench of J. Arun Mishra and J. Navin Sinha.
“Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves was there in the Supreme Court to represent the respondents Ramandeep Singh Bagga and Hardeep Singh Shera but the judges listened to him for just 30 seconds only- during which he said that there was no viable legal ground for allowing the NIA’s petition”, said Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur.
“The judges, however, said that there was nothing to consider in this matter and allowed the NIA’s petition seeking transfer of trial and arrested persons to the Delhi”, Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur added..
He said that it was, no doubt, a calculated move by the NIA to get the arrested persons transferred out of Punjab and the respondent’s legal team was confident of posing hard challenge to their plea in the SCI, given the legal and factual matters involved in the case. But, he added, the way the judges of Supreme Court have decided the case in just 3 minutes without listening to respondents’ arguments shows the agency’s capacity to subvert the judicial procedure.
Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur alleged that the arrested persons face life threat in Tihar jail maintaining that the investigation agency was biased against them.
Notably, the arrested persons are presently lodged in various jails in Punjab. The NIA had earlier sought their jail transfer to Tihar Jail in Delhi but it was denied by the NIA special court of Ms. Anshul Berry in Mohali. After this the NIA had got the NIA court shifted to another judge Nirbhow Singh Gill who was listening NIA’s plea to hide the details of witnesses when the NIA got stayed the trial proceedings from the Supreme Court of India (SCI).