Court rejects Bains’ plea to be party in City Centre case
LUDHIANA: A local court on Saturday dismissed pleas of Lok Insaaf Party MLA from Ludhiana’s Atam Nagar Simarjeet Singh Bains and Delhi-based architect SK Dey to make them parties in the Rs 1,144-crore Ludhiana City Centre scam.
The next date of hearing has been fixed on March 9.
The accused in the case include chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and and his son Raninder Singh, among others. Bains’ advocate Harkanwal Singh said they will move the high court now.
Bains said he will not let people of Punjab “pay price for corruption done by Amarinder and his associates during his previous tenure”. Punjab will have to bear a burden of crores if the court decides in the favour of Today Homes.
Billed as a dream project of Amarinder during his chief ministership in 2002-2007, the City Centre project included developing a multiplex, a mall, leisure parks and other commercial hubs with a rooftop helipad on 25 acres in Ludhiana.
MLA Bains had filed an application in the court challenging the closure report filed by the vigilance bureau in the case on September 16, 2017. Bains has requested to join the proceedings in the case claiming that “since it is a corruption case, he has the right to challenge closure report”.
On November 3, 2017, Delhibased architect SK Dey also filed a plea in the court through his counsel challenging the closure report filed by vigilance department which has given clean chit to Amarinder Singh and other accused. Meanwhile, Captain’s counsel Gurmukh Singh had argued in the court that both Bains and Dey have “no locus standi” in the case. “Court has dismissed both applications and now arguments on closure report filed by vigilance will be held on March 9,” he said.
On August 19, the vigilance bureau, tearing into its own initial enquiry report, filed the closure report in the court claiming that there “was no scam at all” and that “no proof has been found against the accused including Captain Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh, son-in -law Raminder Singh and 33 others following a re-investigation”.