Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh outside district court in Mohali on Thursday. Jasbir Malhi
A special Vigilance Bureau (VB) court has sent back the cancellation report filed by the investigating agency and directed re-investigation of some of the facts in the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) land scam case in which Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is one of the accused. The court has fixed November 6 for the next hearing in the case.
Amarinder, along with the other co-accused, Gurcharan Singh, Parminder Singh Tung, Ashwini Kaleshah, Subash Chander Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Vicky Sharma, Jugal Kishore, Baljit Singh, Rajeev Bhagat, Krishan Kumar Kaul, Tara Singh and Nachattar Singh Mavi, appeared in court on Thursday.
The judge was not convinced with certain points on the basis of which the VB had filed the cancellation report last October. The agency has also been directed to re-investigate specific points and attach the new investigation report with the cancellation report.
The court has said in its order that the agency was silent as to how the exemption was granted for transferring 32.1 acres of prime land of AIT to a private developer, Veer Colonizers. The court has ordered the investigating agency to produce on record relevant policy/notification the land in question was exempted. The agency, according to the court order, did not attach any document of the policy/notification to the cancellation report.
Another point, which the court felt had not been thoroughly probed by the agency, was regarding the tampering of Assembly proceedings in 2003. The VB report said the Speaker made some corrections in the report. The court, however, was not convinced by the VB’s assertion about this specific point and asked the Bureau to investigate the matter.
The order read, “The question at this stage is that the present cancellation report is not based on record but it is based on conjectures and surmises. For proper disposal of this cancellation report, it is necessary that the whole material, pertaining to the present matter, be presented before this court and in the absence of the material, this court cannot form any opinion regarding allegations levelled against the accused persons.”
The orders also read that this court was of the opinion that as there is a scope for further investigation into the present matter, the present cancellation report is hereby ordered to be returned to the VB for further investigation into above aspects of the case.
