BATHINDA, July 3 -- : The Punjab and Haryana high court on July 1 vacated a stay order granted to a petition filed by five Bathinda police personnel in a case of an alleged culpable homicide. After hearing a petition by the accused Punjab police inspector Navpreet Singh and others, justice Sanjay Vashisht stated that the court "does not find any irregularity in the order passed by the magistrate (of Bathinda district), and, therefore, observe that the impugned order has been passed perfectly as per law." After hearing the petition early this year, Justice Vashisht on April 5 had passed an interim stay order stating, "further proceedings by the judicial magistrate first class-cum (JMIC)- illaqa magistrate, Bathinda, shall be kept in abeyance, till pronouncement of the order in the petition by this court." After dismissing the petition yesterday, Justice Vashisht stated, "It is held that there is no infirmity in the impugned (summon orders by the Bathinda court to the accused cops to face a trial) order dated February 18 this year which appears to have been passed in accordance with the provisions of the BNSS, 2023." Rejecting the petitioners' argument of non-compliance of Section 231 of BNSS, 2023 (where the trial court supplies copies of statements and documents to the accused), the HC ruled that the impugned summoning order includes a description of the statements made by four relatives of the deceased. "Statements of 12 witnesses, i.e., police officials, (Bathinda-based) advocate Surya Kant Singla, three medical officers, one forensic expert, two newspaper reports, and three nodal officers have also been recorded," reads the court order. The five police personnel had filed a petition in the HC on March 17, seeking the quashing of criminal proceedings initiated by a Bathinda district court on various grounds. The trial court in Bathinda had served summon orders to the accused cops, who were shifted to Bathinda police lines after the judicial probe, multiple times, but they did not appear before it even once since February 27. It was alleged that the deceased, Bhinder Singh, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village in Bathinda, was picked up by the CIA-1 team for a case of allegedly possessing an illegal weapon on October 17. Though the police denied keeping him in custody, the judicial report relied upon circumstantial evidence to indict the cops. A judicial probe was initiated after the deceased's brother Satnam Singh, who was lodged in Ferozepur central prison, on October 19 last year wrote to sessions judge, Ferozepur, alleging that his brother was "illegally detained, interrogated, and tortured to death by the police" after which the complaint was forwarded to Bathinda district and sessions judge for an inquiry. A fact-finding report by Bathinda JMIC Kuldeep Singh, filed on February 18 this year, had concluded that inspector Navpreet Singh, the then head of the crime investigating agency (CIA)-1, head constable Rajwinder Singh, constables- Gaganpreet Singh, Harjit Singh, Jaswinder Singh were responsible for Bhinder's death and attempted to cover it up with a fabricated story. The judicial probe had directed the police personnel to appear before it to face trial for murder, causing the disappearance of evidence of the offence and other offences as it concluded that Bhinder was kept by the CIA team in custody illegally in October last year and then they tried to fabricate the alleged murder into an accidental drowning....