Patiala, July 9
The state Vigilance Department is likely to file a charge sheet against suspended PPSC Chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu by the end of this week.

Disclosing this, sources said a decision had been taken by the Vigilance to file the charge sheet as soon as it was able to get more lead in the case after the arrest of former PPSC Secretary Pritpal Singh. They said the department was able to make connections that Pritpal had acted at the behest of the suspended Chairman.

The sources said the Vigilance had also been able to connect links between various examiners and the former PPSC Secretary and direct links with Sidhu to whose mother’s house he used to take question papers. The department also feels that the violation of rules and norms by the former Secretary had strengthened its case.

The sources said Patiala District Attorney Vijay K. Markan, who was handling the case here, had been summoned to the Vigilance Department headquarters at Chandigarh today where he met top officers. The sources said the legal angle was discussed so that the charge sheet could be filed quickly. Additional legal material which was being scrutinised and would be presented in court here included more answer sheets which had been tampered with by various examiners. They said these included the answer sheet of Monica Sethi, daughter of a stenographer of a District and Sessions Judge.

The Vigilance Department had registered a case against Sidhu’s touts, Randhir Singh Dheera, Prem Sagar, Paramjit Singh Pammi and Shamsher Singh, besides family members of Sidhu, including his mother Pritpal Kaur, brother Reetinder Singh and sister-in-law Ajinder Kaur on April 30.