HC directions in photo-journalist beating case

Chandigarh, May 3 (UNI) The Punjab and Haryana high Court today directed the Faridkot district police chief to look into the complaint of a Chandigarh-based photo-journalist against the former union minister of state Sukhbir Singh Badal and others.

Justice M M Aggarwal directed the police to do the needful within three months while disposing of the writ petition.

The order was passed on the petition filed by Ajay Verma, then photographer of Punjabi daily Desh Sewak published from Chandigarh.

Mr Verma has alleged that in an incident in Kotkapura on September 5,1999 Sukhbir Singh Badal and some of his associates had assaulted Verma for refusing to refrain from clicking pictures of a car damaged during the Lok Sabha voting.

Sukhbir Singh the son of the then state chief minister and the Shiromani Akali Dal president Parkash Singh Badal was a candidate from Faridkot parliamentary constituency and Kotkapura was one of the assembly segments of the constituency.

The petitioner, in the Dr Prem Singh the then editor of the concerned morning daily, had approached the high court for intervention as the police had failed to respond to their repeated requests to register a case against Sukhbir Singh Badal, the then chairman of MARKFED Jagdish Singh Walia, BJP leader Raj Kumar Bansal from Kotkapura for offences under sections 392,323,201 IPC read with section 120-b and also against the then district police chief A S Rai and other official respondents under sections 202,201,120-B IPC.

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