Ludhiana, January 10
Former Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh, Raminder Singh alias Richi (son-in-law) and a former local bodies minister Ch Jagjit Singh got a major reprieve in the alleged multi-crore City Centre Scam, when the Sessions Court stayed their arrest till January 22.

The prosecution’s (Vigilance Bureau) demand of few days time for arguing the bail application of those accused appears to have proved fatal to the prosecution. Special public prosecutor Mitter Sain Goyal said they had good case to oppose the bail plea but they need few days time. This felicitated the bail for the accused.

The Sessions Judge, G.K. Rai also stayed the arrest of six former trustees of Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) Kala Navkar Jain, Bhupinder Singh Basant, Vijay Parti, Malkiat Kaur, Sanjay Talwar and Surinder Pal Singh Bindra.

They had moved anticipatory bail application after being challaned by the Vigilance Bureau in this case. The court also stayed the arrest of director of the IPE, Ashwajit Singh and two officials of Today Homes Company Sanjeev Gupta and Sourav Gupta.

However, the court dismissed the regular bail applications filed by four directors of Today Homes Company namely Ashok Chopra, Jagtar Singh, Baljeet Singh, Davinder Kumar Anand, Vinay Subhiki (vice-president) and Sunil Sharma (general manager) of the company.

Earlier, all of them had got anticipatory bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Today, they moved regular bail applications. A senior counsel of the Supreme Court appearing on behalf of Captain Amarinder Singh had stressed before the court that his client be granted regular bail till the conclusion of the trial.

Now, no case of custodial interrogation was made out or denying bail to him because the Supreme Court had upheld the decision of the high court granting pre-arrest bail to the captain.

He made a startling revelation that on December 19, 2007, the Additional Advocate General appearing on behalf of the state government had conceded before the high court that there was no need for the custody of Captain Amarinder Singh. It was specifically mentioned in the court order, added counsel while placing the copy of said order before the court. Now how can the prosecution oppose the grant of regular bail to ex-Chief Minister? How can they seek custodial interrogation of the accused, when the court had held that no case of custodial interrogation was made out? Thereafter, the SLP filed by the Vigilance Bureau before the Supreme Court was dismissed.

He said after May 30, 2007, his client was never summoned even for questioning.

The court also directed the former executive officer of Ludhiana Improvement Trust D.C. Garg, chief engineer Manmohan Singh, Chetan Gupta, Harpreet Sandhu, Amit Sardan, Kamal Kumar Verma to appear before court on February 13.

Meanwhile, trying to take the battle to the Badal’s again, Capt Amarinder Singh today said he would move the Supreme Court regarding the corruption case against serving Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his family members, as one after another witnesses were turning hostile “under their pressure”.

“We are discussing legal recourse to be taken in the Apex Court. We may even file public interest litigation before the Supreme Court asking for intervention in the case. It is a mockery of the law we are witnessing in the case. Scores of witnesses are going back on their words. We may even demand the CBI inquiry into the change of stance by the witnesses,” he said.