New Delhi, March 12 A judicial officer accused in a hit-and-run case, whose trial was recently transferred by the Supreme Court from Punjab to Delhi, has died in Hoshiarpur district, Punjab.
Pankaj Garg, who was serving as a First Class Judicial Magistrate (JMIC) in the Hoshiarpur district court, died due to a suspected cardiac arrest.
Garg was from Kalanwali in Sirsa district, Haryana, and was serving in the Punjab judicial service at the time of his death.
His death comes days after the Supreme Court transferred the trial in the alleged hit-and-run case involving him from a court in Punjab to a trial court in Rohini, Delhi.
Last October, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi allowed a plea by the family of the deceased in the hit-and-run case seeking the transfer of the trial, alleging bias as the accused was a judicial officer.
During the hearing, the lawyer representing Garg said he had no objection to the transfer of the trial from Punjab to Delhi, but suggested that the case be shifted to a court in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, citing that the victim's sister-in-law was a practicing lawyer in Delhi.
However, the bench ordered that the trial be transferred to the court of an additional chief metropolitan magistrate in the national capital.
The apex court also transferred another case filed by the victim's wife seeking an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), stating that if any further investigation was required, it would be conducted by the Delhi Police.
In addition, a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal case related to the matter was transferred from Kullu in Himachal Pradesh to a court in Delhi.
According to the victim's wife, her husband died in February last year after being hit by a car allegedly driven by Garg.
