Sumedh Singh Saini has been charged for abduction and disappearance of a junior engineer in 1991.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has rejected the anticipatory bail plea of former director general of police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini in connection with a 29-year-old abduction and murder case.
The court has also turned down his request to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The development has now cleared the way for the Punjab police to arrest the former top cop, who, the police claim has gone underground to evade arrest in the case. Mr Saini, according to Punjab police, went missing after he left his Chandigarh residence on September 3.
Mr Saini, who is a "Z+" category protectee of the state government, left without Punjab Police security personnel and security vehicles, including the jammer vehicle, on his own, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Multani disappearance case had said.
In 1991, Balwant Singh Multani, a junior engineer with Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation, was picked by police after the terrorist attack on Mr Saini, who was the then senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh.
Police had later claimed that Multani had escaped from the custody. He had been missing since.
A case was filed against Mr Saini and six others in May based on the complaint of Balwant Multani's brother Palwinder Singh Multani. Two former Chandigarh police personnel, who are also co-accused, have turned approvers in the case.
With inputs from PTI