New Delhi, June 25
The Supreme Court today gave two weeks’ further time to former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh and one of their kin for filing reply to the state government’s petition seeking cancellation of their bail in the multi-crore Ludhiana city centre scam case.

The apex court, in its order of June 18, had fixed for today the hearing on the Punjab Government’s special leave petition (SLP) seeking setting aside of the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order granting anticipatory bail to Raninder Singh and Raminder Singh, a son-in-law of Amarinder Singh’s brother.

According to the Vigilance Bureau (VB) case, Raninder, alias Tikku, had been one of the main beneficiaries of the alleged illegal transactions in the city centre project deal with the Delhi-based company Today Homes, which was allegedly given the contract in violation of the rules. Raminder was also named a beneficiary in the case by the VB.

After Raninder’s counsel Uday Lalit and Atul Nanda today sought more time to submit the counter affidavits on behalf of his clients, a Bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and P K Balasubramanyan, allowed two weeks’ time to file the same.

Though Punjab Government’s counsel S Ganesh and its Additional Advocate General K K Khurana had no objection on granting of further time, the VB team investigating the case is pressing for bringing to apex court’s notice the alleged non-cooperative approach of the two accused in joining the investigation despite the High Court’s direction in this regard.

The Ludhiana branch of the bureau had sent a communication to Director General (DG) of Vigilance Bureau at Chandigarh on June 22, stating, “The conduct of the accused may be brought to the notice of the Supreme Court.” A copy of the letter has also been sent to Punjab’s Advocate General H S Mattewal.

According to the letter, the Ludhiana unit of the VB informed the DG that Raninder and Raminder failed to appear before the investigating team on June 22 after the notices were served on them in advance on June 10 under Section 160 of the CrPC.

The contents of each of the telegram reproduced in the letter read as “regarding my joining investigation on June 22. Request, fresh date be given to continue to join investigation after Punjab and Haryana Courts reopens.”