The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the Punjab Police Chief to immediately register two FIRs in connection with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's two interviews aired by a private news channel in March.
A division bench of Justices Anupinder Singh Grewal and Kirti Singh also asked the Special Investigation Team of the Punjab Police led by Human Rights Commission Director General Prabodh Kumar to conduct probes into the FIRs.
The other members of the SIT are IPS officers S Rahul and Nilambari Vijay Jagadale.
In its Friday order, which was released on Saturday, the Supreme Court also said that the SIT chief would have the liberty to seek assistance from any other officer or any kind after making such a request to the Director General of the police.
The SIT has been asked to complete the investigation expeditiously and submit a status report before this court within a period of two months, the order said.
The division bench passed these directions while hearing a suo motu case related to use of mobile phones by inmates in the jail.
“The DGP, Punjab, is directed to immediately register two FIRs in relation to conducting two interviews as recommended by the Special Investigation Team at the police station with jurisdiction over the state,” the order said.
Bishnoi is one of the suspects in the 2022 murder case of singer Sidhu Moosewala.
In March this year, a private news channel showed two interviews with Bishnoi.
During the hearing on December 14, the SIT, which probed the gangster's serial interviews, had said in its report that it was highly unlikely that the interviews of Bishnoi were conducted in any of the prisons in Punjab when he was in the police force. guardianship.
The court further directed the Punjab DGP to immediately remove/block/disable/restrict the URLs/web links/videos related to both interviews from social media platforms like YouTube.
“Please ensure that the press outlet, where the said interview is hosted, removes the URLs/web links/videos from all its news/social media platforms with immediate effect. In case the said interviews are discovered by the police as existing on social media platform in future, the same will be removed with immediate effect,” the report said.
The DGP was also asked to direct search engines Google Search, Yahoo Search and Microsoft Bing to de-index and remove the interviews and related content from their search results globally.
In the order, the court stated that it has gone through the contents of the interviews which show that she glorifies crime and criminals.
“The interviewee (Bishnoi) is involved in 71 cases in the state of Punjab and has been convicted in four cases, including offenses under the Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act, 1967, 302 IPC, extortions, etc.
“The interviewee justifies the murder of targets and his criminal activities. He has repeated and justified the threat against a film actor. As in many cases in which he is involved, trials are underway and attempts are being made to transform his personality into to project grander than life could.” influence on the witnesses,” the court said.
It was further said that these interviews would have been viewed more than 12 million times.
“It would have a negative effect on young people with impressionable minds. Punjab is a border state and any deterioration in law and order or increase in crime could affect national security as sometimes anti-national elements take advantage of the situation and often use criminals for their nefarious designs.
“They often receive help from across the border. There is a fine line between extortion, target killings and anti-national activities. The conduct of the interviews is a clear breach of prison security and a violation of the Prison Act. The interviews have been broadcast. of the last nine months and are available in the public domain,” it added.
While directing the registration of the FIR, the court also said, “Those who facilitated the interviews should be booked at the earliest.”
Referring to the SIT report on Bishnoi, the court said it is clear that the commission has not reached a definitive conclusion that the interviews were not conducted in a jail or police custody in Punjab.
“We find it strange that the committee took more than eight months to reach an unclear conclusion,” the report said.
Nevertheless, the committee has recommended registration of two FIRs following two conversations that were held in violation of the law.
The court also asked the Additional Director General (Prisons) to submit a status report on the timelines for installation of jammers, CCTV cameras, nylon mesh and X-ray body scanners to enhance prison security.
The court has set January 10 as the next hearing date in the case.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: December 23, 2023 | 10:42 PM IST