Ranchi, May 22: A two-member bench of Jharkhand High Court Chief Justice Virender Singh and Justice P.P. Bhatt today directed CBI to investigate all three cases lodged against powerbroker Ranjit Singh Kohli alias Rakibul Hassan, who allegedly tortured his wife Tara Shahdeo to try and change her religion.
The bench made this ruling while hearing a PIL filed by NGO Akhand Bharat, which had requested the court to direct the CBI to probe high-profile cases involving people in the upper echelons of society.
Shahdeo, a national-level shooter in her early twenties, had married Kohli on July 7, 2014, in a lavish wedding at a city hotel.
After a month, Shahdeo walked out, lodging an FIR and accusing her husband of domestic violence and attempts to force her to embrace a particular religion. She also said she had not been aware of her husband's real religion before or during her wedding. The case became murkier when Shahdeo alleged Kohli was a powerbroker with many contacts in political circles and the judiciary.
Though Kohli was arrested from New Delhi late in August 2014 and is now in judicial custody at Birsa Munda Central Jail, Ranchi, since September last, the progress of the cases has been slow.
NGO Akhand Bharat filed the PIL in the wake of the CBI's "inordinate delay" in lodging an FIR even after then Hemant Soren government recommended one of three cases against Kohli to be given to the CBI last August itself.
This case was related to FIR 742/ 2014 (IPC section 498A for cruelty and harassment, 295A for outraging religious feeling and 153A for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), which was lodged at Hindpiri police station in August 2014.
On November 25, 2014, the Union home ministry notified the case to CBI. But the CBI did not lodge any case.
This week on Tuesday during hearing of another PIL, the bench asked CBI whether the agency planned to investigate the case recommended by the state government.
This apart, today the bench directed the other two cases to the CBI - FIR no 797/14 (IPC section 406 relating to criminal breach of trust, 419 to impersonation and 420 to cheating) and FIR no 799/14 (IPC section 216 relating to harbouring an offender and others).
"The process of lodging FIR will be completed soon. The first case recommended to us is related with cruelty and harassment, outraging religious feeling. Second case is about Kohli keeping 35 SIM cards obtained by fudging identities. In third case, judicial official Rajesh Kumar, policeman Ajay Kumar along with Kohli and his elderly mother Kaushal Rani alias Kausar Parveen and Kaushalya Devi were named accused for flight, destroying evidence and harbouring offenders," an SP ranked CBI officer said.
