2 days before model code: Wife of judge hearing Kathua case elevated

Chandigarh, Mar 27: The BJP government in Haryana appointed Kamaldeep Bhandari, wife of the judge hearing the Kathua rape and murder case, to an important statutory post, two days before the model code of conduct kicked in on 10 March, a media report said on Wednesday.
ThePrint reported that Kamaldeep was among the three new information commissioners appointed to the Haryana State Information Commission on 8 March. The other two were Lt Gen. K. J. Singh, a retired GOC-in-C Western Command and Jai Singh Bishnoi, a former Congressman who had joined the BJP in September 2018.
All three will serve a term of five years.
They beat 229 applicants for the post, which included retired and serving IAS officers, in a selection process that lasted nearly a year.
While the appointments were virtually done at the last minute, barely beating the model code of conduct, Haryana had advertised for the posts in June 2018 and August 2018.
Kamaldeep, who has served as a member of the Right To Service Commission in Punjab, is the wife of Dr Tejwinder Singh, the district & sessions judge, Pathankot, who has been hearing the sensitive Kathua rape case since July last year.
A PhD in law, Dr Singh began hearing the rape case in May last year after it was shifted from Jammu to Pathankot in Punjab by the Supreme Court.
The case pertains to the rape and murder of a nine-year-old Bakerwal Muslim girl in Jammu in January last year, a horrific crime that had shocked entire India.
The case had divided J&K along communal lines with BJP leaders supporting the accused and questioning the “Kashmir-centric” investigation. It also became a bone of contention between the BJP and the PDP after which the BJP withdrew its support to the Mehbooba Mufti government in June last year.