The Rajasthan High Court Monday issued show-cause notices to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director and other officials involved in missing nurse Bhanwari Devi’s case for alleged harassment of a Congress legislator’s 80-year-old mother in the name of interrogation, a lawyer said.
The notices were issued on the petition filed by Amari Devi, mother of legislator Malkhan Singh Bishnoi who has been arrested by the CBI in the case.
The bench of Justice Govind Mathur directed the CBI to file a reply by Feb 10.
Amari Devi was admitted to the Mathura Das Mathur Hospital Thursday morning after she appeared before the CBI for questioning at the Circuit House here Tuesday and Wednesday.
The family members alleged that Amari Devi was harassed by the investigating agency during interrogation. She is the wife of late Ram Singh Bishnoi, who was one of the most prominent leaders of the Bishnoi community.
“The court admitted our petition and issued show-cause notices to the CBI director and other officers concerned with the case,” said Amari Devi’s advocate Sunil Joshi.
However, according to a press release by Rajasthan Police on behalf of the CBI, the agency never summoned her for questioning.
“She had come to the Circuit House on her own Tuesday and Wednesday. She came there to speak with a man who had been called for questioning,” it said.
However, people from the Bishnoi community claimed that members of Bishnoi’s family were being harassed by the CBI. Under the banner of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, hundreds of people marched to the district collector’s office Friday and staged demonstrations there.
In the petition it was alleged that even children are being summoned for questioning illegally and unnecessarily by the CBI.
It is alleged that three men Shahabuddin, Sohan Lal and Baldev Jat alias Balia kidnapped Bhanwari Devi from Bilara in Jodhpur rural Sep 1, killed her and then handed over her body to a gang of criminals headed by Bishnaram Bishnoi who burnt it to ashes and dumped the remains in a canal.
Bhanwari Devi, shown in a compromising position with former Rajasthan minister Mahipal Maderna in a CD, went missing Sep 1 last year.
According to sources close to the CBI, Maderna and Malkhan Singh were hand-in-glove in the entire conspiracy as the nurse was blackmailing both of them.
The two politicians allegedly roped in Sahiram Bishnoi, who hired Sohan Lal, Balia and Shahabuddin for the task of kidnapping the nurse. Bhanwari Devi’s husband Amarchand was also arrested on suspicion over his involvement in his wife’s disappearance.
