New Delhi, June 4
The Supreme Court today issued notices to former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh and one of his close relative Raminder Singh Thakkar, alias Richi, on the Punjab government’s appeal for the cancellation of their anticipatory bail in the multi-crore Ludhiana City Centre scam case.

The Punjab government, which is planning to move another special leave petition (SLP) tomorrow in the apex court for cancelling the bail of B.I.S. Chahal, a former media adviser to Amarinder Singh, sought the cancellation of the bail of Raninder and Richi on the ground that their “custodial interrogation” had become necessary in view of some new evidence emerging during the investigation.

They were granted anticipatory bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on May 24, laying down certain conditions on them, including a direction regarding making themselves available for interrogation by the officers of the state Vigilance Bureau (VB).

But the Punjab government counsel Arun Jaitely told a Bench of justices Arijit Pasayat and D.K. Jain that despite the High Court’s directive, they had not made themselves available for interrogation even for a single hour, while the interrogation of “hawala agent” Chetan Gupta had revealed that both were actively involved in the case.

The Bench while seeking replies from Raninder and Richi by June 18 issued notices to them on a limited question whether the High Court order required modification in view of the apex court laying down the law for grant of anticipatory bail in Adri Dharan Das’s case in 2005.

Jaitley relied heavily on the apex court ruling in the Dharan Das case, which says that the anticipatory bail has to be granted for a “limited duration” on expiry of which, the matter should be left entirely to the trial court to deal with on the appreciation of the evidence emerging during investigation.

Since new evidence had emerged in the wake of the statement of Chetan Gupta, recorded by the VB officials on May 19, the government said a case was made out for the cancellation of the anticipatory bail to the duo.

Sources in the Vigilance Bureau told The Tribune later as per the fresh evidence, transactions of at least Rs 21 crore in different instalments had been detected to the accounts of Capt Amarinder Singh and his close relatives during the relevant period when the project was being finalised.

They said the government “will be filing another SLP for the cancellation of the anticipatory bail of Chahal tomorrow.”