Supreme Court refuses to interfere with Punjab and Haryana High Court order staying arrest of Barjinder Singh Hamdard

New Delhi, July 15

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order staying the arrest of former Rajya Sabha MP and Ajit Group of Publications Managing Editor Barjinder Singh Hamdard in a cheating and corruption case registered by the Vigilance Bureau in Jalandhar.

A Bench led by Justice MM Sundresh, however, asked the high court – which is scheduled to take up the matter on July 18 – to expeditiously decide it.

The case relates to the construction and running of Jang-e-Azadi Memorial in Jalandhar.

The high court had also issued notice to the CBI as Hamdard wanted the case to be transferred to an independent agency. He alleged that he had been falsely implicated in it to compel him to succumb to the government pressure and publish their paid news/advertisements “in the form of news articles and thereby forgo his ethics in a bid of the state to spread misinformation and influence the electorate”.

The then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal considered it appropriate to confer upon him the honour of being part of Jang-e-Azadi Memorial, keeping in view his stature and impeccable reputation in the field of journalism and literature, Hamdard submitted before the high court.

“The petitioner agreed to the same and worked tirelessly, despite his professional constraints and was successful in the construction of Punjab Freedom Movement Memorial to honour the freedom fighters of the state. The present government, however, started targeting the petitioner to settle their personal scores by conducting a fishing and roving enquiry in the construction and running of the memorial by illegally targeting the petitioner for extraneous consideration,” he submitted.