Case against Sumedh Saini: Man who claimed seeing ‘missing’ Punjabi in Nepal gets perjury notice

New Delhi, December 21

Acting on a plea filed by the CBI, a Delhi court on Thursday issued a perjury notice to a witness who claimed to have seen in Nepal one of the three men who went missing from Punjab in March 1994, eight months after their mysterious disappearance.

Former Punjab Director General of Police SS Saini and three others are facing prosecution in the almost 30-year-old case for alleged abduction of automobile businessman Vinod Walia, his brother-in-law Ashok Kumar and their driver Mukhtiyar Singh. While Vinod and Mukhtiyar were picked up by the police from the parking lot of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on March 15, 1994, Ashok was allegedly abducted from Ludhiana the same day.

“An application under Section 340, CrPC (perjury), was filed yesterday on behalf of the CBI. A copy has been supplied to the learned counsel for accused number 1. On filing another copy, the same be sent along with a notice to the witness concerned to file his reply, if any, on January 6, 2024,” Special Judge Naresh Kumar Laka ordered.

In his testimony, defence witness Varinder Pramod on September 18, 2023, told a CBI special court that he saw victim Vinod Walia at Kathmandu on November 19, 1994, and that he informed two newspapers, for which he was working, about it. He also claimed that a story regarding the incident of seeing Vinod Walia was published in both newspapers within 10 days at Ludhiana.

However, on being summoned by the special court, the newspapers said no such news story was published.

“The prosecution thinks that Varinder Pramod has deliberately given false evidence before this court and as such, an inquiry needs to be initiated under Section 340 of the CrPC against him in the interest of justice,” the CBI submitted in its application seeking initiation of perjury proceedings against the defense witness. The special court is scheduled to examine two other witnesses on December 22.