The High Court of Punjab & Haryana has sought an explanation from one of its senior-most officers regarding replication of a CCTV footage, which was supposed to be only examined by the lawyers of the 2 parties involved.
The HC bench of Justice Amol Rattan Singh passed the order asking the registrar (judicial), responsible for maintaining court record & listing of cases, to explain why a copy of the footage was supplied to one of the lawyers when it was very clearly ordered that both counsels will only examine the sealed record upon applying for it.
The order was passed following objections by the Chandigarh Police counsel, who also alleged that the Court administration did not maintain a proper record of the footage's replication.
The Court was dealing with a controversy surrounding the arrest of a city-based dentist, Mohit Dhawan, by the Chandigarh Police on Jan 7. Dhawan has been alleging that he is being harassed at the behest of former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special director Rakesh Asthana & former Chandigarh DGP TS Luthra.
The dentist was booked on Sept 21, 2020, on the complaint of a Nairobi woman, who had accused him of cheating her when she visited his clinic in 2017-2018 to get dental implants.
Dhawan’s lawyer had claimed that when, on the directions of the high court, his client went to the District Courts Complex at 10 am on January 7 & got an affidavit notarised to show his presence in this cheating case, he was arrested by police before he could appear before a magistrate.
On the other hand, the police had claimed that Dhawan was arrested in the evening, & from near the Sector 43 ISBT, in another FIR & not in the cheating case in which his anticipatory bail plea is pending before High Court.
As such, the court had directed the sessions judge to preserve CCTV footage of all cameras installed outside the court from between 10am & 11.30am on January 7 & submit it with registrar judicial on Jan 27.
Subsequently, UT’s counsel had claimed that Dhawan was not seen anywhere in the morning CCTV footage, as claimed by him. But the evening footage showed him walking along with policemen in the ISBT area.
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(With input from news agency language)
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