New Delhi, October 5
The Supreme Court has stayed the trial court proceedings in corruption cases against two former Punjab ministers and an MLA, all SAD leaders. They had challenged their prosecution by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on the grounds that no prior sanction was obtained by it from the competent authority.
A Bench of Mr Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Mr Justice P.P. Naolekar ordered the tagging of their petitions along with the petition of former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal yesterday, which, the court said, would be referred to a Constitution Bench for deciding the issue of sanction.
Special leave petitions (SLPs) of former ministers Tota Singh and Nirmal Singh Kahlon and MLA Sohan Singh were taken up for hearing by the court along with Mr Badal’s SLP yesterday while issuing notices to the state government and Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
The notices were also issued to the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Special Judge, Ropar, as the petitioners had challenged the holding of their trial by him on the grounds that the Punjab Government’s order designating such power to him was “illegal”. The notices to the trial judge and the high court were issued to seek clarification about the designation of the power to the Special Judge.
Seeking replies from the respondents within four weeks, the court said “the issue raised in these petitions involve an important question of public interest; the same should be disposed of as expeditiously as possible.”
Since SLPs of former Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and former Punjab minister Gurdev Singh Badal, raising the question of “prior sanction” for prosecuting public servants, had earlier been referred to a Constitution Bench, the court said these cases should also be tagged with them.
Meanwhile, Punjab’s Additional Advocate-General Atul Nanda said “a subsequent sanction from the Punjab Assembly Speaker for the prosecution of these accused, had been placed on record by the government before the trial court.”
However, the counsel for the petitioners had yesterday questioned the so-called sanction, describing it as “defective”.
