'Issue 7-day notice if FIR registered': Punjab and Haryana HC directs on Hamdard's plea

Chandigarh, June 1

Issuing notice of motion to the State of Punjab for August 16 on Padma Bhushan Barjinder Singh Hamdard’s plea, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday directed the issuance of a seven-day notice in case an FIR was registered. Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj also asked the State counsel to send a questionnaire to the petitioner.

He, in turn, was given two-week time to file reply to the questionnaire. Justice Bhardwaj also made it clear that the petitioner would fully cooperate during the inquiry in the matter. His personal appearance was also dispensed with.

Hamdard had moved the Court for transferring to any independent agency like the CBI the inquiry initiated by the Vigilance Bureau’s Jalandhar unit regarding the construction and running of the `Jang-E-Azadi’ memorial.

Also the chief editor of the Ajit newspaper and a former Member of Parliament (RajyaSabha), Hamdard had made Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann a party by name. But notice was not issued to Mann by the high court.

In the petition filed through senior counsel R.S. Cheema with advocates Arshdeep Singh Cheema, R. Kartikeya and Ishan Khetarpal, Hamdard also sought directions to the independent agency or the CBI to also investigate the manner in which the “instant inquiry has been initiated and how independent media houses are being pressurized either by withholding advertisements or by misuse of law at the behest of the State government”.

Hamdard contended the inquiry initiated on a source report was required to be transferred “in the background of a very open and public tussle between Ajit newspaper and the present government”. He added there was, as such, an irrefutable apprehension in his mind that the instant inquiry in the hands of vigilance bureau will not be fair, impartial and unbiased.

“The sequence of facts and especially the tweet by the Chief Minister and hostile conduct towards the Ajit newspaper(s) ex facie reflects that any inquiry by the vigilance department of the State is not expected to be fair and impartial by any stretch of imagination. It is further to be pointed out that the vigilance bureau is currently being run as a personal fiefdom of the Chief Minister and numerous inquiries are initiated by the vigilance bureau”.

It was added that the petitioner was shocked to receive summon from the vigilance bureau requiring him to be present before the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vigilance Bureau, Jalandhar, at its office.