Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday dared the Punjab Government to ask a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to inquire into all cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in the State.
He said similarly, a sitting judge of the Apex Court could also inquire into all alleged false cases during the tenure of the SAD-BJP as well as during the last ten months of the Congress Government, particularly those in the hometown of Pradesh Congress president Sunil Jakhar.
Sukhbir said that known Congressman and CM’s crony Justice (retd) Mehtab Singh Gill was heading this Commission presently.
The SAD president also announced that the party’s core committee would take a decision on the next course of action on the issue of fraud played on the farming community by the Congress Government on January 12.
“We will also meet the Punjab Governor on the same day and demand dismissal of the State Government for betraying the farmers of the State,” he said while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here.
The SAD president said a sitting judge of the Supreme Court could also go into all cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in the State during the tenures of both the SAD-BJP and the present Governments. “We will fully cooperate with the sitting judge in his inquiry and will humbly respect whatever findings he comes up with,” he said.
Sukhbir further said the present Commission headed by Justice (retd) Ranjit Singh had already been reduced to a cruel joke by the announcement of its findings by both Captain Amarinder Singh and the PPCC Chief, Sunil Jakhar, both of whom have been declaring that the commission will find Akalis guilty of being behind these acts of sacrilege even while the commission is still supposed to be conducting its inquiry.
“Any judge with professional pride and dignity of his office would have resigned on seeing his report being so brazenly and preemptively announced by leaders of the ruling party politicians,” said he.
Speaking about the partial crop loan waiver done a day before, the SAD president said Capt Amarinder Singh had defrauded the entire farming community. “This is the same man who promised an `90,000 waiver encompassing all loans be it from nationalised and cooperative banks or from private money lenders. Now, he has delivered an `167 crore relief which gives an average relief of `35,000 each to 47,000 farmers,” said Sukhbir.
In direct contrast, the SAD-BJP Government headed by Parkash Singh Badal had given a relief of `65,000 crore over 15 years by introducing free power for agriculture tubewells. This amounted to a relief of `80,000 to `1 lakh for each farmer annually, said he.
This is not all. We gave a relief of `642 crore to cotton farmers for single crop damage. We increased the per acre compensation from `2,000 to `8,000. We also gave an interest free working capital limit of `1 lakh to farmers, he added.