Framed for fining Orbit bus, SDM gets relief from panel

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 22

The Punjab Police slapped a corruption case on an SDM about two years ago as he had challaned an Orbit bus owned by then ruling Badals. The Justice Mehtab Singh Gill (retd) Commission has recommended the cancellation of the FIR against the officer after ruling that the case was an upshot of vendetta.

Complainant Vijay Kumar Syal had moved the commission, alleging that an FIR was falsely registered against him in April 2016 for cheating, forgery and other offences under Section 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC, along with provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, at the Vigilance Bureau police station, Bathinda.

Stepping into the witness box, Syal and other witnesses recorded their statements. He stated that he was posted at Faridkot when he challaned the bus. During the course of hearing, Faridkot’s former VB DSP and investigating officer Harjinder Singh said he had retired from government service and was not aware of the current status of the case.

After “minutely going through the FIR and the recorded statement of the complainant along with other witnesses,” the commission asserted: “We are of the considered view that the FIR has been falsely registered against Vijay Kumar Syal out of vendetta as he had challaned an Orbit bus, which was owned by Sukhbir Singh Badal, then Home Minister. We are of the opinion that the FIR be cancelled after taking orders from the trial court.”

The panel, comprising Punjab and Haryana High Court’s former Acting Chief Justice Mehtab Singh Gill and former District and Sessions Judge BR Mehandiratta, was constituted about nine months ago to look into frame-up cases during the 10-year rule of the SAD-BJP alliance.

The order is part of the fifth interim report expected to be submitted soon. Looking into more than 4,000 complaints, the commission has so far detected false implication and political vendetta in about 80 per cent of the cases examined.

Till December 3 last year, the commission had submitted four interim reports, disposing of 563 complaints out of 4,371 received till July 31.