Plea alleging Badal, Capt in cahoots to settle cases is motivated, says govt

Prosecution dept tells court that exvigilance SSP Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu’s plea is devoid of merit and should be dismissed with extra costs; case adjourned to August 3

The Punjab prosecution department has told the district and sessions court that an application that former vigilance SSP Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu has filed in the court in the ₹1,144-crore Ludhiana City Centre Scam is devoid of merit and liable to be dismissed with extra costs.

Dismissing the allegations in the application that former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had joined hands to settle cases against each other, the prosecution reply states that the factum of joining hands by Amarinder and Badal is false. The reply also accuses Lok Insaaf Party MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains of provoking Sandhu to file the plea.

“Simarjeet Singh moved a similar application which was dismissed on February 3. Now, he has got moved the present application through the SSP,” states the reply submitted by director, prosecution, Punjab, Vijay Singla, and Ludhiana district attorney, Ravinder Abrol.

The court of district and sessions judge, Gurbir Singh, has now adjourned the case to August 3 for argument.

ORIGINAL CASE FILED IN 2007; CLOSURE REPORT HAD BEEN FILED

The vigilance had registered the Ludhiana City Centre Scam case in March 2007 and had filed the closure report in a Ludhiana court last year. In the case, Captain Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh, and former local bodies minister Jagjit Singh, now deceased, were named along with the 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 prosecution reply reads, “The FIR in the City Centre scam was registered when the SAD and the BJP were in power. The cases against Captain Amarinder have been investigated, uninfluenced from any quarter and are taking its own course. The Captain has no role in the registration of criminal cases against Badal.”

“The application has levelled wild and baseless allegations. It is clear that the object of filing it is to seek publicity or to subvert the course of the administration of justice,” reads the reply. On the allegation that the SSP is being threatened, the reply says that the applicant (Sandhu) has served as a police officer and would have promptly lodged a report if any untoward happening had taken place.

On July 18, the complainant in the Ludhiana City Centre scam involving chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has said he was being pressed to depose in the court in the favour of the accused.