Chandigarh, July 22
Acting on a petition filed by an advocate seeking the transfer of the Punjab Public Service Commission recruitment scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Ms Justice Kiran Anand Lall of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice of motion to the state of Punjab, the Home Secretary, the Director General of Police and two other respondents for August 5. The Judges also directed that the record pertaining to the transfers should be produced in the court.

Claiming that the state was involved in “operation cover-up”, advocate Rupinder Khosla, in his petition, claimed that the transfer of officers belonging to the intelligence wing in the middle of the investigations “may have been done to thwart the probe”. Giving details, he asserted: “So far as the strategy of emasculating the intelligence wing was concerned, the coup de grace was delivered when its head Additional Director-General of Police (intelligence) A.P. Bhatnagar, along with three colleagues was unceremoniously shunted out”.

He added: “It was this team that nabbed the PPSC Chairman and later unearthed crores of bribe-money collected by him. Transferring them in the middle of the case would no doubt affect the case. But what is more serious is the fact that the High Court Chief Justice had specially asked the particular officer to assist him in the probe against some judges alleged to be involved in the scam. Even more serious is the statement made by Mr Bhatnagar and widely reported in the press that an amount of Rs 2 crore out of the money lying in the lockers of chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu stood unaccounted for and the same was most probably used to influence higher-ups”.