The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, July 5, 2003, Chandigarh, India

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Badal challenges Amarinder
Tribune News Service

Mr Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir talk to the media in New Delhi on Friday. — PTI photo

New Delhi, July 4
A day after his meeting with Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Akali Dal chief Parkash Singh Badal today challenged the Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to order a judicial probe and dared him to arrest him.

“Let a high court Judge conduct an inquiry into the charges of corruption against me. If there is an iota of truth in the allegations, I will retire from politics,” Mr Badal told newspersons here at the residence of his son, Mr Sukhbir Badal.

Asserting that he was “least worried” about his arrest, Mr Badal said rather Capt Amarinder Singh should be worried as he had never experienced what a jail was like.

“My biggest worry is about the blatant murder of democracy in Punjab under the Congress regime,” he said.

Rubbishing allegation that he and his son had amassed property worth Rs 3,500 crore during his tenure as Chief Minister, Mr Badal said the Congress government could not prove a single instance of corruption since it had come to power in the state.

Accusing the Punjab Chief Minister of trying to make it a case of “personal vendetta” against him, Mr Badal said the Congress government had been trying desperately to weaken him and his party.

Judge refuses to hear Wimpy’s plea
Says he knows an accused
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 4
The vacation Bench of the Delhi High Court today refused to hear the petitions by the international food chain company Wimpy and its officials, challenging their arrest by the Punjab Government’s Vigilance Bureau in connection with a corruption case against former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s OSD, as one of the judges said he personally knew an accused person.

“Propriety demands that I should not hear the matter,” Justice R.S. Sodhi, a member of a division Bench told the counsel for various parties, pointing out that Narottam Singh Dhillon, whose name figured in the Punjab Government’s reply, was known to him.

The Bench, having Mr Justice Mukul Mudgal as the other judge, fixed further hearing of the matter on July 9 before a regular Bench.

The Punjab Government in its reply filed through Additional Advocate General Sudhir Walia to Wimpy and its five officials’ petitions stated that during the searches at the house of Dhillon, a London-based nephew of Mr Badal, “a reliable source informed the investigating team that chairman of Wimpy K.S. Sidhu and some of his employees who were working in the finance department of the company were actively involved in the financial transactions between Hardeep Singh, OSD to the former Chief Minister and his family.”

The court had earlier issued notices to the Punjab Government, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and the Bureau officials on the petitions by Wimpy, its vice-president Yash Dhawan director finance R.K. Gupta, Deputy Manager (finance) Sanjiv Kulshreshta and two drivers, who were detained and whisked away to Punjab by its team on June 14 allegedly without informing the Delhi Police.

The state government further said that there was no truth in the Wimpy and its officials’ allegations that the Delhi Police was not taken into confidence.

“Whenever the investigating team had visited Delhi, the inter-state coordination cell of the crime branch of the Delhi Police at Chanakyapuri, was duly informed about their arrival, movement, arrest, investigation and departure of the team, which fact is duly recorded in the daily diary of the local police station,” the state government said.

“In fact each and every time, the officials from the crime branch of the Delhi Police had accompanied the investigating team (from Punjab) during their stay in Delhi,” it claimed.

Punjab Home Secretary, Vigilance Bureau’s Additional Director-General A.K. Pandey, Deputy Inspectors General — Sidharth Chattopadhayaya and K.K. Uppal — and SP Surinder Singh are among the respondents issued notices by the court.

The Vigilance Bureau has accused the company officials and its MD of helping Mr Badal and his family “in converting their ill-gotten black money into white money”.

Wimpy and its officials have pleaded innocence and accused the state government of “unnecessarily dragging” their names in the case.

But the state government contended that Wimpy’s petition itself was “contradictory”, as out of 15 annexures filed by it along with the writ, eight deal with the family of Mr Badal and Hardeep Singh.

“Investigations have further revealed that Hardeep Singh had 30 bank accounts and had purchased seven properties with huge investments and had Rs 3 crore in his bank accounts,” the state government said.