By Rana Ajit, IANS
New Delhi : A former judge has claimed that a senior Delhi Police officer had tried to influence him to grant quick bail to policemen who had gunned down two innocent men in March 1997 in broad daylight in the capital’s Connaught Place area on the pretext that they were criminals.
Former additional sessions judge Prem Kumar, who had handled what is known as the Connaught Place shootout case in its initial stage as Delhi’s chief metropolitan magistrate, made the sensational disclosure hours before the ruling on the case by Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar.
Prem Kumar made the disclosure to IANS while talking about the tardy pace of trial in criminal cases. The judgement in the Connaught Place shootout case is due Tuesday, exactly ten years, six months and 15 days after the shooting.
Prem Kumar, who now practices as an advocate, told IANS: “Despite filing the charge sheet at the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court after completing its probe into the killings, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was not able to arrest the 10 accused policemen.
“The CBI was not able to arrest them simply because the Delhi Police was not cooperating with them in executing the arrest warrant issued by the court.
“As the CBI repeatedly failed in arresting the accused policemen, I had to pass a stern order saying that if the arrest warrants issued by the court are not executed within a stipulated time frame, the police commissioner will have to appear before the court to explain the failure.
“It was after that stern order that accused Rathee and others were made to surrender before the court,” said Prem Kumar.
“In fact, days before they surrendered, an additional commissioner of police approached me to say that they are surrendering and requested me to grant them bail. I had to severely rebuke the officer,” Kumar added without disclosing the identity of the officer.
Rathee and his team were well known for “encounter killings”, where the police alleged that they had shot dead suspects trying to flee. Police versions of the killings have been questioned often.
Rathee had the reputation of being the ace sharpshooter in Delhi Police and had been given several awards and out-of-turn promotions.