AIG Ashish Kapoor after he was arrested by the Punjab vigilance bureau. (Express Photo)A special court here Tuesday extended the police remand of Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Ashish Kapoor by three more days. The Vigilance Bureau (VB) told the court that the officer did not give the details of his bank accounts to the investigators.
The VB produced Kapoor and co-accused Assistant Sub-Inspector Harjinder Singh in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Harpreet Kaur Tuesday. The VB demanded extension in the remand. The investigation agency told the court that they had to inquire about a transaction of Rs 15 lakh, which was made to a Karnal-based jeweller by the officer. The agency had also informed the court that Kapoor did not give any information about his different bank accounts and bank lockers.
The agency also submitted in the court a list of 10 witnesses in whose bank accounts the alleged bribe money was transferred. The agency told the court that they had to make the recoveries from Kapoor and his co-accused.
Kapoor, while contending the agency, told the court that the payment to the jeweller was made from his debit card. He also informed the court that he built his house after his father had helped him financially. The agency had also took the measurements of Kapoor’s house in Sector 88 last month.
Meanwhile, Kapoor’s counsel Pardeep Virk informed the court that the agency had all the information about the officer’s bank account and that it was demanding the remand just to humiliate the officer who probed big cases.
The VB registered a case against Kapoor who was posted as Commandant, 4th IRB, Pathankot for taking bribe of Rs. one crore through different cheques. In this case DSP Intelligence Pawan Kumar and ASI Harjinder Singh had also been nominated as accused.
The case was registered under sections 7, 7-A Prevention of Corruption Act and 420, 120-B of IPC against the accused on October 6.
According to the VB’s FIR during posting as Superintendent Jail at Central Jail, Amritsar in 2016, Kapoor had got acquainted with a woman Poonam Rajan of sector 30, Kurukshetra, Haryana who was under judicial remand in the Jail in some case. When Poonam Rajan, along with her mother Prem Lata, brother Kuldeep Singh and sister-in-law Preeti, was in police remand in a cheating case in 2018 in Zirakpur police station, Ashish Kapoor allegedly went to the police station and fraudulently convinced Poonam Rajan’s mother Prem Lata to help her getting bail and acquittal from the court.