Supreme Court Pulls Up Punjab Police Over Poor Investigation In Unnatural Death Of Wife; Constitutes SIT
The state police failed to investigate in a dispassionate, fair and just manner", the Court said.;
Updated: Mar 29, 2025, 11:13 IST
Pulling up the State of Punjab over its shoddy investigation in the murder case of a woman, the Supreme Court today directed the constitution of a Special Investigation Team of Punjab cadre officials not belonging to the state to probe the matter.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order, directing the Punjab Director General of Police to constitute the SIT within 1 week, which shall comprise two IPS officers of Punjab cadre not having roots in the state and one woman officer of the rank of DySP (or above).
The Court was of the view that the victim died an "unnatural death" and had there been a timely investigation to complete the chain of circumstances, the investigation would have reached a logical conclusion.
"we find that the state police has failed to investigate the matter in a dispassionate, fair and just manner...the transferring of investigation to the Crime Branch, after the chargesheet had already been filed is also a strange action, which cannot be countenanced, because once chargesheet has been filed, it is the prerogative of the Court to consider whether or not further investigation is required", noted the order.
The petitioner (father of the victim) had filed the instant case aggrieved by Punjab and Haryana High Court's grant of bail to respondent No.2 (husband of the victim). While the family was residing in Amritsar, the victim allegedly had an extra-marital relationship with a neighbor, who pressured her into marrying him. However, she did not succumb to the pressure and relocated alongwith respondent No.2 to Gurdaspur. In 2020, the victim was found dead with several injuries on her body and postmortem confirmed that it was a case of "unnatural death".