Hours after blaming the Akalis for scuttling Bargari probe and preventing justice inside the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday directed the State Advocate-General Atul Nanda to oppose the CBI closure report in the Bargari case in the CBI court.
“The agency had no jurisdiction to file the report in the light of January 2019 observations of the Punjab and Haryana High Court,” said the Chief Minister issuing the directive on the basis of judicial and legal position shared with him by the A-G after a detailed examination of the facts and circumstances preceding the closure report.
After the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Aman Arora raised the issue of CBI closure report in the sacrilege cases during the Zero Hour, the Chief Minister minced no words to blame the Akalis for scuttling the investigations in the Bargari sacrilege case and the failure to bring the culprits to book till date.
Asking the State Government to come clean considering the different statements by the Chief Minister, his A-G and the DGP, Arora demanded to furnish the notification regarding withdrawal of sacrilege cases from the CBI after Vidhan Sabha’s resolution.
“I have the closure report and it says that the CBI sought the notification thrice, but the State did not respond.
..The investigation officer said that the Punjab Police officer never contacted the CBI for investigations,” he said asking if there is the notification, why the government did not communicate this to the CBI.
Responding, the Chief Minister cited the High Court’s observations, in January 25, 2019, judgement in Charanjit Singh and others Vs State of Punjab, to show that the CBI failed to make any progress in the investigations.
The Court, in its verdict, had stated: “In the instant case, as FIRs had already been registered by the State police and notifications issued in the year 2015 did not give a general power to the CBI to register cases apart from the FIRs specified in the notifications, the question of prospective operation of notification withdrawing consent would not arise.”
“A clear distinction can be drawn in this regard vis-Ã -vis the notifications issued in Dorji’s case. In the instant case, consent of State of Punjab was in respect of specific FIRs and in fact amounted to transfer of investigation from one investigating agency to another. Present is not a case where this Court has been called upon to test a situation where State has granted consent to CBI to register cases on its own in respect of a class of offences,” he said.
He pointed that on the other hand, the notification withdrawing the consent is pursuant to resolution passed by the Vidhan Sabha which in clear terms states that the investigation of cases given to CBI needed to be taken back. Besides, during the course of hearing, this Court called for the case diary of the CBI and perused the same.
It was evident that investigation in the cases had hardly made any headway, he added while reading the Court observations.
Capt Amarinder further said that the Court had observed, “In view of the observations made above, this Court does not find any infirmity with the decision taken by Punjab Government to withdraw the consent under section 6 of the Act pursuant to resolution of the Vidhan Sabha. In the instant case, the CBI did not seriously oppose the withdrawal of consent. Even in its reply, it meekly stated that the matter was under investigation and did not question the validity of notifications withdrawing the consent for investigation by it.
On the other hand, it forwarded the notifications to Government of India for further necessary action.”
On a specific query being put to CBI counsel about the status of investigations despite lapse of almost three years, no clear answer was forthcoming, the Chief Minister further pointed out.
“None of the learned counsel referred to any judgment in order to show that there was any fetter on power of State Govt. to withdraw consent in such cases where investigation was transferred from State police to CBI. Besides, due to withdrawal of consent, investigation would continue with one investigation agency and not partially with two separate agencies. The chain of events shows that same are inextricably linked, thus this court does not feel the necessity to interfere in the decision of the State Govt. to withdraw investigation from CBI or to set-aside consequent notifications,” he further read from the court’s order.
Capt Amarinder also highlighted the fact that the court had found the SIT set up by the state government to be fully equipped to handle the probe. He cited the court’s remarks: “This Court has no doubt that for the purpose of arriving at logical conclusion, the SIT shall employ all investigative skills and forensic methods at its command and conclude the investigation expeditiously.”
Given the facts and circumstances, it was more than obvious that the CBI decision to file its closure report was ill-motivated and not in the interest of justice in the Bargari case, the Chief Minister told the House.
“Despite the Akalis’ efforts to obstruct justice, the State Government would, however, take the case to its logical conclusion and ensure justice for the victims,” said Capt Amarinder.
Lashing out at the SAD for its shameful and obstructive role in the entire case, the Chief Minister pointed out that they (Akalis) had first handed over the case to CBI to delay the investigations and had now pressurised it to submit a hurried closure report.
“No proper inquiry was conducted by the CBI...The central agency deliberately did not make any headway in the case under the directives of the then Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Sukhbir Badal...The CBI did no investigations because of you,” he said, pointing to the Akali benches.
The Chief Minister noted that the CBI had, in fact, shown interest in challenging the state’s decision to withdraw the Bargari cases from it, but then suddenly and inexplicably decided to file its closure report.
It was obvious that the agency had acted under political pressure, he added.
Defending the SAD, its MLA Parmidner Singh Dhindsa said that the inquiry was handed over to the CBI following the demand by the Sant Samaj, panthic organisations, Congress and AAP.
On this, Capt Amarinder lashed out at him asking who was the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister at that time. “It was your police...you did not have faith in your police,” he said triggering a protest by the Akali-BJP legislators, who then entered the well of the House shouting anti-government slogans and staged a walkout in protest.
SAD-BJP SUBMITS PRIVILEGE MOTION AGAINST CM FOR "MISLEADING THE HOUSE"
Accusing the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh of “misleading the House” over the issue of CBI probe into sacrilege cases, the SAD-BJP legislative wings on Tuesday submitted a privilege motion against him. The combine pointed that the “conflicting statements” were being made on the sensitive issue of sacrilege to derail investigations.
Led by SAD legislative party leader Parminder Singh Dhindsa, the combine MLAs submitted the privilege motion to the Assembly Speaker Rana KP Singh along with the documentary evidence to prove its allegations after the conclusion of House proceedings, requesting that it be accepted.
“The Chief Minister has misled the assembly by citing a court order, dated July 25, 2019, selectively and made out a case that the erstwhile SAD-BJP government should not have forwarded the case for investigation into sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib to the CBI,” said Dhindsa.
Maintaining that the real facts of the case were completely different, he said that the Chief Minister had contradicted his own statement of July 31, 2019, wherein he had called for reinvestigation of sacrilege cases by the CBI.
“Even earlier on November 6, 2015, Capt Amarinder had stated that the cases of sacrilege incidents be probed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. On this occasion, Capt Amarinder Singh was accompanied by then Congress president Rahul Gandhi and PCC president Partap Bajwa who had both demanded a CBI inquiry into the sacrilege cases,” he said.
Dhindsa, addressing the media along with party MLA Bikram Majithia, said that the Punjab Government made a formal request in this direction also with the Bureau of Investigations DGP writing a letter to the CBI Director on July 29, 2019, with the consent of the State DGP.“The letter stated that the SIT constituted by the Punjab Government had revealed certain witnesses or suspects were still left to be examined and that technical evidence collected by it needed further analysis including coordination with agencies abroad. As per the official communication, the Government requested that in light of these facts the CBI should probe all three cases of sacrilege incidents further,” he pointed.
Majithia said that the Punjab Government was further exposed by the CBI Investigating Officer in the CBI court in Mohali who when asked disclosed that no State official or Punjab police official had contacted him with regard to the investigations into the cases of sacrilege.
“All these facts pointed out that the Chief Minister had cherry picked a particular court order to mislead the august House,” said Majithia adding that the Chief Minister was facilitated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to give a “tailor made answer” which suited the Congress party politically.
Earlier, the SAD-BJP MLAs had staged a protest outside the Vidhan Sabha building on the sacrilege issue demanding Supreme Court-monitored inquiry.