Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday said that the reported move of the Punjab Vigilance Bureau to close the case, related to exemption of land by Amritsar Improvement Trust, against him and others is a clear vindication of his stand that it was filed out of sheer political vendetta only and had no legal basis.
At the same time, he lashed out at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for alleging an understanding between him and the Badals. “Does Kejriwal know that the reported closure has its basis in the Supreme Court ruling in my favour and restoring my membership of the Vidhan Sabha,” he asked, adding, “or does he mean to attribute motives to the SC decision alsoIJ”
Capt Amarinder said although it was yet to be confirmed whether the Vigilance Bureau had decided to close the case or not, the Bureau will have no option but to close it since the case had no legal or legitimate basis except the vendetta by the Badals against him, as he had jailed them for corruption during his tenure as the Chief Minister.
He pointed out the Akalis had scripted his expulsion, which was unanimously set aside by the five-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court with severe strictures against the government for misusing their “brute majority” to expel an elected member of the Vidhan Sabha.
Referring to the exemption granted by the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) to Vir Builders in January 2006, which was made the basis for his expulsion from the Vidhan Sabha and subsequent FIR, Capt Amarinder said that his government had only followed the policy formulated by Badal.
He said that AIT had acquired 275 acres of land on December 12, 1996. “Badal gave exemption for 87 acres on May 11, 2001 to Mohan Vihar, Amarjit Vihar and Doctors' Housing Cooperative Society. Under the same policy, our government gave exemption for 33.1 acres to Vir Builders,” he said.
“We followed Badal's policy on exemption for which he scripted my unconstitutional expulsion from the Vidhan Sabha,” he said, adding that rather it was his (Capt Amarinder's) government which later made the policy more stringent.
Capt Amarinder, replying to a question about AAP allegations that Congress and Akalis were playing a fixed match, asked them to clarify whether they believe whatever the Akalis had done was fair and correct.
“let them clarify whether the case was not about vendetta and let them also clarify whether or not they trusted the Supreme Court or believed the Apex Court also to be playing a fixed match with us by reinstating me as the member of Punjab Vidhan Sabha,” he retorted when asked that AAP leaders were alleging an understanding between him and the Badals.