Court notice to state government, Capt on plea of vigilance EXSSP

Complainant Kanwarjit Sandhu claims he is being pressured to depose in favour of accused, alleges Amarinder, Badal have joined hands to settle corruption cases against each other

LUDHIANA:ACTING on a plea submitted by a former vigilance SSP that he is being pressured to support the accused in the city centre scam case, a local court on Wednesday issued a notice to the state government and all the accused in the scam, including Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, to file a reply on July 26.

There are 35 accused in the case, including Amarinder, while two have died.

In his plea in the court of the district and sessions judge Gurbir Singh, former vigilance SSP Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu has alleged that he is being pressured to depose in the court in the accused’s favour.

He alleged that both Amarinder and former CM Parkash Singh Badal have joined hands to settle the cases of corruption filed against each other.

Sandhu’s counsel Vijay Mahendru said the former SSP is being pressured to support the cancellation report when the court will summon him for recording his statement regarding the cancellation as he was the investigating officer in the case.

Sandhu’s plea reads, “Both Captain Amarinder Singh, chief minister, Punjab, and Prakash Singh Badal, former chief minister and his family, have joined hands to scuttle judicial process by diluting the cases of corruption involving thousands of crores of rupees. Not only this, they are using blatant misuse of their executive power to threat and intimidate public servants who in their due process of duty had investigated the cases against them and unearthed criminal conspiracy of corruption, bribery and amassing wealth.”

It adds, “Captain Amarinder Singh is chief minister of Punjab as such the department of home and prosecution is under him and there is clear-cut conflict of interest

No public prosecutor in the case will ever have the guts to file anything in the court against Captain, who is an accused in the scam. SIMARJIT S BAINS , LIP chief

as he himself is accused in the city centre scam.” The vigilance had filed a closure report in city centre scam in August last year.

Meanwhile, Lok Insaaf Party chief Simarjit Singh Bains demanded that the case be shifted out of Punjab so that justice is delivered. “No public prosecutor in the case will ever have the guts to file anything in the court against Amarinder Singh, who is an accused in the scam. It’s a major achievement that the former SSP has complained to the police. It was always evident that Captain and Badal have joined hands and dropped cases against each other,” he said at a press conference here.

He added, “I have written to the chief justice of India and also to the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court to shift the city centre scam out of Punjab for free and fair justice.”

The case was registered by the Punjab vigilance bureau (VB) in March 2007, wherein Capt Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh, and former local bodies minister Jagjit Singh, now deceased, were named along with others for allegedly causing monetary loss to the state by awarding the contract for a multi-million mega project for the City Centre in Ludhiana to a New Delhi-based construction company.

The case pertains to Amarinder Singh’s previous stint as chief minister from 2002 to 2007. The bureau had filed a chargesheet in the case in December 2007.

In August 2017, the VB moved a closure report in the case.