Ludhiana, January 22
Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh, son-in-law Raminder Singh, alias Richi, and former local bodies minister Choudhary Jagjit Singh were today granted bail till the conclusion of trial in the alleged multi-crore City Centre Scam.

Sessions Judge G.K.Rai pronounced the order after hearing day-long arguments of both sides in a jampacked court. The judge asked them to furnish surety bonds to the tune of Rs 5 lakh and file affidavit that they would appear regularly during the trial.

Pronouncing the order, the judge held that no useful purpose would be served by rejecting their bail applications and putting them behind bars, as the conclusion of the trial would take a long time.

The judge specifically referred to the observations made by the high court while granting anticipatory bail to Capt Amarinder Singh and by the Supreme Court while dismissing the SLP filed by the vigilance bureau against the grant of anticipatory bail to Capt Amarinder Singh.

A visibly elated Amarinder Singh said that it was their victory and defeat of the state government.

Right from the beginning, we were having full faith in the judiciary. The grant of regular bail has justified our stand that it was a case of only political vendetta. Badals just wanted to see me behind bars to satisfy their ego, but they forget that the rule of law prevails in the country, Amarinder Singh added just after the court order.

The court of Sessions Judge also granted bail to Ashwajit Singh, managing director of the IPE company. The stay granted on the arrest of six former trustees of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) Kala Navkar Jain, Bhupinder Singh Basant, Vijay Parti, Malkiat Kaur, Sanjay Talwar, Surinder Pal Singh Bindra shall continue till the next date of hearing February 13.

The orders brought cheers to supporters of Capt Amarinder, who were waiting outside the court. The district police had made all arrangements to arrest Amarinder Singh and others if their bail applications were dismissed. Senior counsel, representing Amarinder Singh, said that despite the rejection of bail, the vigilance bureau was not in a position to arrest him. They claimed that in a order passed yesterday, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had already stayed the arrest of former CM.

Meanwhile, anticipatory bail was today moved by Sunita Gambir, Natasha Gambhir, Yeshu Gambhir, Vikram Gambhir. The court issued notice to the vigilance bureau for Feburary 1. On the last date, the court had issued bailable warrants against them.

District Attorney Mitter Sain Goyal had strongly opposed the grant of regular bail to all accused. He had submitted that they all were highly influential persons. They would allure or extend threat to the prosecution witnesses, which would make fair trial impossible. Arguing for around two hours, he alleged that Amarinder and Jagjit Singh were the main conspirators in the City Centre Scam.

On the other hand, the counsel for the Captain family had categorically stated that he was summoned once by the vigilance bureau during investigation. Their client had fully cooperated in the investigation. After that, he was never called for any type of questioning till the filing of challan. Moreover, Congress party is in opposition in Punjab. How does the question of their alluring or threatening the prosecution witnesses arise? The case would now come up for hearing on Feburary 13.