A special CBI court on Tuesday framed charges against Punjab Police IG Sumedh Singh Saini and three other police officials accused in wrongful detention and disappearance of two businessmen in Punjab 12 years ago.

The court of Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Goel ordered charges to be framed against Saini and his co-accused - Paramjit Singh, SS Sandhu and BC Tiwari under Sections of the IPC relating to criminal conspiracy (120b), abduction (364), wrongful confinement (340 and 342) and wrongful confinement for three or more days (343).

The court also ordered substantive charge to be framed for abduction against Saini. According to the chargesheet filed by the investigating agency, at the time of the incident, Saini was the SSP of Ludhiana, Sandhu was SP of Ludhiana, Paramjit Singh was the SHO of Focal Point PS while BC Tiwari was the SHO of Kotwali PS. The court in its order on December 6, last year, had directed all four accused to be present during the next hearing on framing of charges.

Significantly, the earlier order mentioned Section 341 (wrongful restraint) instead of 342 (wrongful confinement) as part of the sections to be invoked against the accused.

During arguments on Tuesday, prosecutor YK Saxena sought that the section for wrongful confinement be invoked instead of wrongful restraint, adding that it had been a clerical error which needed to be rectified, and that the section of confinement had been mentioned throughout the chargesheet and in the earlier documents.

The defence contested this, charging that the prosecution was trying to “smuggle in’’ the section on wrongful confinement instead of wrongful restraint since confinement is a much graver offence and carries a heavier punishment of three years.

... contd.