After 35 years, Court Quashes Case Against CRPF Officer In Pattan Incident

SRINAGAR: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed a 35-year-old criminal case against a former Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer, calling the prosecution sanction “flawed” and unsupported by evidence, Delhi-based newspaper, The Indian Express reported.

The FIR, registered in 1990 at Pattan police station in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district, accused Ajay Kumar Pandey, then a Deputy Superintendent of Police in the CRPF, of illegal custody and disappearance during anti-militancy operations. The case was filed under Sections 364 and 344 of the now-repealed Ranbir Penal Code, relating to kidnapping with intent to murder and wrongful confinement for more than 10 days, respectively.

According to newspaper, the complaint had been filed by resident Peerzada Ghulam Mohammad, who alleged that CRPF personnel had taken away his son, Peer Mohammad Shafi, and that his whereabouts were unknown.

For years, the case made no headway. It was only in 2007, 17 years after the FIR, that the Jammu and Kashmir government sought permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs to prosecute the officer. The Centre granted sanction in 2010, two decades after the alleged incident. The court found such delays unjustifiable, particularly when no new evidence had surfaced.

Pandey challenged the prosecution sanction orders of 2010 and 2011, calling them arbitrary and factually flawed. His counsel argued that a 1992 Court of Inquiry conducted by the CRPF’s 46th Battalion had given him a clean chit and that he had cooperated with the investigation. The defence also stressed that his unit had not been deployed in the area where the alleged raid occurred.

The bench of Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj observed that the complainant had wrongly implicated a decorated officer and that “no raid was ever conducted by the petitioner.” The court also criticised the manner in which the prosecution sanction was granted, stating that sanctions are not a “mere formality” but a critical safeguard to prevent baseless charges against public officials.

“There is no cogent and objective material… showing prima facie involvement of the petitioner,” Justice Bhardwaj said, faulting sanctioning authorities for ignoring the earlier clean chit and failing to cite any fresh material.

The court cited Supreme Court precedents where prosecution sanctions were invalidated due to delays, including the 2002 Mahendra Lal Das v. State of Bihar case, in which an FIR was quashed after a 13- to 15-year delay. In comparison, the court said, the present case involved a gap of 35 years.

Rejecting the argument that only a full trial could uncover the truth, the bench warned that such a stance would “render the entire sanction process meaningless and leave officials defenseless against malicious complaints.”