Issue 7-day notice to Barjinder Singh Hamdard if FIR registered: HC

Chandigarh, June 1

Issuing a notice of motion to the state for Barjinder Singh Hamdard’s plea for August 16, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed 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 a two-week period to file a reply.

Hamdard had moved the court seeking to transfer a vigilance inquiry initiated against him to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Editor-in-Chief of Ajit Group and a former MP Hamdard had made Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann a party by name. But no notice was issued to Mann by the high court.

In the petition filed through senior counsel RS Cheema, Hamdard sought an independent agency’s involvement to investigate the matter and how independent media houses are being pressured either by withholding advertisements or by misuse of law at the behest of the state government.