Chandigarh, June 28
Wimpy International has sought registration of cases of kidnapping and abduction against Punjab Vigilance Bureau officials maintaining that the bureau had exceeded its jurisdiction in taking five of its employees in custody from their Delhi homes without proper search and arrest warrants in the investigation of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) and Foreign Exchange Maintenance Act (FEMA) cases which were beyond the purview of a state agency.
Wimpy International belongs to a London-based NRI, Mr Kanwaljit Singh Sidhu, whose name figures in the first information report (FIR) lodged by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau against Mr Parkash Singh Badal and others at SAS Nagar police station on June 24.
After admitting an urgent company petition preferred by Mr Sidhu’s company, the Delhi High Court today issued notices to the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, the Home Secretary, Mr S.K. Sinha, the Chief Director of Vigilance Bureau, Mr A.P. Pandey, and the Deputy Commissioners of Police of Hauz Khas and Greater Kailash in New Delhi for Monday.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau had in a midnight swoop taken in custody five employees of the New Delhi office of Wimpy International, including three accounts executives, from their homes early this month.
In its petition, Wimpy International held that the Punjab Vigilance Bureau had no jurisdiction in investigating cases which related to violation of FERA or FEMA. Further, it held that when the bureau went to the houses of the employees of the company, they were neither armed with any search or arrest warrants nor were they accompanied by the local police. They also did not disclose their
identity. As such, it amounted to the abduction of employees who were being kept in illegal custody since then. After six days in police custody, the Wimpy employees were remanded to judicial custody and their bail applications could not be taken up on June 25 on technical grounds.
The company has made the Delhi police a party in the petition and notices have also been served on Deputy Commissioners of Hauz Khas and Greater Kailash areas of the union Capital.
Praying for declaring the proceedings as null and void and beyond jurisdiction, the company has pleaded that cases be registered for abduction and kidnapping against all members of the vigilance team that took five employees in custody and took them to Chandigarh without any proper transit remand.
Sources said a notice had already been served on the Punjab Home Secretary and the Chief Director of the Vigilance Bureau. Notices were also to be served upon a DIG, a couple of SPs and DSPs of Punjab who had been named respondents in the petition.
