Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday stayed the transfer orders of the Enforcement Directorate officer, Niranjan Singh, who questioned Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Majithia in the multi-crore drugs case.Besides, the record pertaining the officer’s transfer has also been called by the High Court Division Bench comprising Justice Satish Kumar Mittal and Justice Deepak Sibal.
The directions came on the plea, filed by advocate Navkiran Singh on behalf of NGO lawyers for Human Rights International, against Niranjan Singh’s transfer to Kolkata, in the drugs matter pending before the court.The plea came a day after the father of former cop and alleged drugs kingpin Jagdish Singh Bhola reached the corridors of justice demanding a probe into the ED officer’s transfer.
In his petition, Bhola’s father Balchinder Singh, while referring to newspaper reports, alleged that “the enforcement directorate officer, who made enquires from Majithia, has been transferred to Kolkata”, and the official and Bhola were “apprehending danger” from the Punjab Police.Navkiran Singh, in his petition, alleged that the transfer would “hamper the investigation by the Department of Enforcement Directorate into Rs6,000 crore money laundering international drug racket”. He added that the investigation in the matter was “at the final stage”.
He added that the ED official Niranjan Singh’s transfer was “neither in public interest, nor in the interest of justice”. The petition maintained that drug case was being supervised by the High Court for last more than a year; and status reports were being filed by the State and Central agencies. “The shifting out an investigating officer, playing an important role in the investigation, was not beyond suspicion,” it added.
The petition read, “In situations where the investigating officers of two important cases, the coal scam and 2G scam, were transferred and the Supreme Court of India found the same not to be in the interest of justice, it stayed the transfer orders and ordered that the particular investigating officers would remain as investigating officer till the completion of the trial.”
“In the present case, since the Enforcement Directorate has interrogated more than 50 important witnesses and the investigation is at fag end, the changing of investigating officer would be sending the investigation directionless,” it added. The matter will now come up for the next hearing on February 2.