The Punjab and Haryana High Court has put on hold the life sentence imposed on Zahoor Haider Zaidi, a former Indian Police Service officer who served as Inspector General of Police in Himachal Pradesh and headed the Special Investigation Team probing a custodial death linked to the 2017 Gudiya rape and murder case.
The matter relates to the brutal rape and murder of a minor girl, Gudiya, in Kotkhai near Shimla in 2017. During the investigation, Suraj, one of the accused in the case, died while in police custody at the Kotkhai police station, with allegations that he was subjected to custodial torture. Owing to the seriousness of the allegations and concerns over fairness, the Supreme Court later ordered that the trial be transferred from Shimla to a CBI court in Chandigarh.
In January this year, a special CBI court in Chandigarh convicted Zaidi along with seven other police personnel and sentenced them to life imprisonment for their role in the custodial death. Challenging both his conviction and sentence, Zaidi approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking suspension of the punishment during the pendency of his appeal.
A division bench comprising Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur granted interim relief to Zaidi, ordering that the sentence awarded to him will remain suspended until the High Court finally decides his appeal against the trial court’s verdict.
During the hearing, Zaidi’s counsel contended that he was not present at the Kotkhai police station at the time of the alleged custodial torture and death. It was argued that Zaidi was on a pre-approved leave to perform the last rites of his father and therefore could not have played any direct role in the incident. The defence also highlighted that Zaidi has already spent more than five years in custody and that, given the backlog of cases, his appeal is unlikely to be taken up for final hearing in the near future.
The Central Bureau of Investigation opposed the plea for suspension of sentence, submitting that instead of granting interim relief, the High Court should proceed to hear the appeal itself on merits.
After considering the submissions, the High Court observed that statements made by a co-accused are not admissible as evidence unless they fall within the specific exceptions provided under the Indian Evidence Act, which, the court noted, did not appear to be satisfied in this case. The bench also remarked that there was no clear motive attributed to Zaidi for causing the custodial death of Suraj.
Taking into account these prima facie observations and the fact that Zaidi has already undergone more than five years of incarceration, the High Court held that he was entitled to suspension of his sentence. At the same time, the court clarified that the observations made at this stage were limited solely to deciding the application for suspension of sentence and should not be treated as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case when the appeal is finally heard.
