A farce in Punjab

Capt Amarinder Singh and Tota Singh do not have much in common except that both are charged with wrongdoing in their previous stints in power, both face a number of court cases, some of which may be dropped if courts accept the outgoing Badal government's let-them-go requests. Despite all the SITs formed and high-profile cases the Vigilance Burueau has handled, including those involving the Badals, not a single conviction has happened. Courts have passed strictures and ordered perjury cases against witnesses turning hostile and investigation officers taking U-turns. The processes of law have been used to defeat the processes of justice and ethics in public life.

In the prevailing scenario, the prosecution moving the court to withdraw a case against Agriculture Minister Tota Singh for his alleged involvement in a recruitment scam should not come as a surprise. Three years ago a similar attempt was thwarted by the court. He was earlier discharged in a case of possessing disproportionate assets and again came under a cloud over his role in the pesticide scam. The Badals’ calculated benevolence towards the Punjab Congress president, however, has raised eyebrows. In 2006, as Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh was accused of exempting a 32-acre piece of land from acquisition at Amritsar, apparently to favour a private builder. Finding him guilty after an inquiry, the then Vidhan Sabha expelled him and the Vigilance Bureau booked him for corruption. Subsequently, the Supreme Court quashed the expulsion. On reinvestigation, the VB has gone back on its own findings and given laughable explanations for FIR cancellation. The whole Vigilance mechanism has been reduced to an organised farce.

Political opponents naturally see this as Badal’s favour to the Captain, who had earlier opposed a CBI inquiry into a drug case involving Majithia. The Ludhiana City Centre case in which Capt Amarinder Singh was charged with altering terms of a housing project, resulting in a benefit of Rs 1,144 crore to a Delhi firm, has been left to linger. Now the Enforcement Directorate is probing his son, Raninder Singh’s links with an offshore company that bought a London property worth 1.8 million pounds. All this makes the citizen lose faith in the efficacy of laws as also reinforces the perception that “corruption cases” are a political tool.