HC Pulls Up Haryana Govt for Not Submitting Murthal Rapes Report

The High Court pulled the Haryana Government up for seeking more time to “collect more facts.”

The High Court of Punjab and Haryana pulled up the Haryana Government up for seeking more time to “collect more facts” in the Murthal gangrape. According to a PTI report, while the counsel appearing for the Haryana government admitted that rapes had taken place during the Jat quota agitation in Murthal, they also asked for more time to come up with something concrete.

The court had sought the second part of the Prakash Singh Committee report into the matter, which the government failed to produce today.

At least 30 people were killed and property worth crores of rupees destroyed during the 10-day Jat agitation in February over reservation in government jobs and education.

There can be no doubt... even they (Haryana) are not denying it. Earlier, there was reluctance on your part to even register an FIR. But now, you have accepted that rape had taken place... Let’s not deviate from the main path which is identification of the victim and ensuring justice... This time, things have gone too far. We want results.

Division Bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Lisa Gill

A TOI report states that when the matter came up, senior advocate Anupam Gupta, who is assisting the court as amaicus curae, objected to “intentional leakage” of the status report of the special investigation team to a news portal.

Gupta alleged that either the SIT head or an officer of the Haryana government had deliberately provided a confidential report to a news portal that had denied occurrence of rape cases. He said that the same news portal had published the interview of the mother of a rape survivor, which couldn’t be denied by the Haryana police. The amicus even cited former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh’s interview, where he had accepted, while probing the role of officers during Jat agitation, that “something dishonourable” had happened in Murthal during stir.

TOI Report

The court has adjourned the hearing of the case for 23 July and has directed Haryana to submit the report immediately. The counsel for Haryana has stated that it will certainly do so by Tuesday.