notified now comprises Justice A.S. Garg, Mr H.S. Riar and Mr Jagmohan Chaudhary with a term of three years. Last year he had to quit before starting his work as the one-man enquiry commission after serious allegations of corruption and misuse of position were levelled against him by an Additional District and Sessions Judge of Haryana. Justice Garg is related to the Advocate-General of Punjab, Mr Harbhagwan Singh, and belongs to Haryana.
In fact many an eyebrow has been raised over the manner in which Law Officers and now members of the Law Commission have been appointed. “It is who’s who of the state’s influential people, including both politicians and bureaucrats,” remarked a senior Akali leader referring to the long list of Law Officers.
Last time when the appointment of Justice Garg was made, The Tribune had come out with a story in its April 29 issue carrying details about the letter an Additional District and Sessions Judge of Haryana had written to the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court making serious allegations against him.
Investigations had then revealed that an industrial unit — Sandeep Ceramics at Bahadurgarh in Haryana — belonging to Sandeep Garg, the only son of Justice A.S. Garg, was taken over by the Haryana Financial Corporation after the loanee failed to repay the principal amount and interest touching Rs 2.4 crore.
In his written communication to the Punjab and Haryana High Court the Additional District and Sessions Judge alleged that Justice A.S. Garg had been pressuring him into getting the loan outstanding against the name of his son waived from the Haryana Chief Minister.
The Additional District and Sessions Judge further claimed that since he was related to the Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, as his son was married to the daughter of the Chief Minister, Justice Garg opted to be the inspecting Judge of the Hisar sessions division, where he was posted, so that he could pressure him into getting the loan of his son waived.
Sandeep Garg had taken a loan of Rs 80 lakh from the HFC by mortgaging the Faridabad house of his father. Since the unit did not do well, the dues started mounting and they crossed the Rs 2 crore mark before the corporation took it over to dispose it of as a sick unit to recover its money. The unit was offered benefits under the RBI scheme for sick units by which a major portion of the loan would have been written off. Instead, the Gargs allegedly preferred to get the entire amount waived.
At one stage, the unit was auctioned for Rs 1.2 crore and the bidder did deposit the earnest money of Rs 12 lakh. Since he did not return to make the remaining mandatory payment, the earnest money was forfeited and credited to the account of the loanee.
The Additional District and Sessions Judge said that besides pressing him to get the entire loan waived, he was also pressured into getting a new industrial plot allotted in the name of a relative as the family members, being defaulters, could not get any plot allotted. He alleged that pressure was also put on him to get the mortgaged house freed from the HFC.
He alleged that since he could not get anything done for Justice Garg, the latter allegedly tried to harm him professionally with some adverse entries in his service record.
At that time, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, had maintained that the decision of Justice A.S. Garg to quit was his “own”. Subsequently, the Punjab Government reportedly deferred the idea of appointing a commission against the previous SAD-BJP government. His resignation then had given a severe blow to the Congress government which had wrested power in the state with a promise of wiping out corruption from Punjab.
