Refusing to make the payment of Rs 55 lakhs spent from the state exchequer to facilitate the two-year “cozy stay” of Uttar Pradesh’s gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the state’s Ropar Jail, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday made it clear that he was planning to recover the money paid to “expensive” lawyers from the former Ministers “who wanted him to be kept in Punjab jail”.
“The benevolence of the previous rulers towards this dangerous criminal can be judged from the fact that though 48 warrants were issued against Ansari, the then Government didn’t bother to produce him. Surprisingly, the then government spent Rs 55 lakh of tax-payers’ money to safeguard the interests of this criminal lodged in Ropar Jail,” said Mann.
This atrocious loot of the public money is totally unwarranted and undesirable, he said, adding that he has returned the file regarding this matter to the Department concerned.
Declaring that the “open plundering of the tax-payer’s money” cannot be tolerated at any cost, Mann said that the State Government is also mulling to recover this money from the Ministers “who have taken this sinister decision”.
“Everyone involved in this heinous crime will be made accountable for their sin,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that this is brazen loot of the public money which cannot be tolerated. “For reasons, best known to the previous regimes, this notorious criminal was kept in Ropar Jail with full comforts…Apart from ensuring comfortable stay, the State Government ensured that this hardcore criminal do not face any sort of difficulty within the jail and escapes the legal action against him,” he said.
Mann’s decision came days after the police inquiry, conducted into Ansari’s stay in Ropar jail, indicted some jail officials but not any politician. In the inquiry report, it was also alleged that Ansari had connections with some state and national Congress leaders.
Available information suggests that the file regarding senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who represented the Punjab Government in the Supreme Court in 2021 when the Uttar Pradesh Government had sought Ansari’s transfer to UP, is awaiting clearance from the State Government. The then Congress Government in Punjab had opposed Ansari’s transfer. The file, regarding Dave’s fees, was making rounds of various functionaries during the previous Charanjit Singh Channi’s led state government also.
Ansari was in Ropar jail in connection with an extortion case from January 2019 to April 2021 during the tenure of the previous Congress Government led by Captain Amarinder Singh, with senior Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa holding the Jails Department. Ansari was brought here on a transit remand from UP in connection with an FIR accusing him of seeking a ransom of Rs 10 crore from a builder in Mohali’s Sector 70. However, the challan regarding the same was never presented in the Court.
The issue reached the Supreme Court with the UP Government accusing the Congress-led Punjab Government of “shamelessly keeping Ansari” in its jail.
After coming to power, former Jails Minister in the present AAP government Harjot Singh Bains had ordered an investigation into the VIP facilities enjoyed by Ansari during his stay Ropar prison, and had also raised the issue in the Vidhan Sabha.
In the inquiry report submitted recently by the state ADGP RN Dhoke, recommendations have been made to initiate proceedings under the Prevention of Corruption Act against some jail officials for allegedly taking bribes from Ansari in lieu of the facilities.