A Special court in Mohali on Wednesday reserved the order on whether to continue or stay the ongoing trial proceedings in the high-profile graft and criminal case pertaining to the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) land scam. Special Judge S K Garg,who is conducting the trial of the case,will pronounce the order on the fate of trial proceedings on October 23 while November 21 has been fixed as the next date for hearing arguments on framing charges against the accused. Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh,former Local Government Minister Ch Jagjit Singh,former AIT chairman Jugal Kishore Sharma and 12 others appeared before the court while former secretary of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Nachhattar Singh Mavi was not present as he was abroad. Today,the defence counsel and public prosecutor concluded their arguments on a plea moved by Jagjits counsel before the court on August 17 seeking a stay on the trial proceedings in the light of an order passed by the Supreme Court in the case. Submitting a copy of the said order,the defence counsel had argued that the observations made therein indirectly tantamount to stay on trial proceedings till further orders. Strongly opposing the plea,Public Prosecutor-cum-District Attorney Pradeep Mehta vehemently argued that nowhere in the said order,it was written to stay the trial proceedings,which he stressed to continue without any further delay. We are fully aware of the observations made and directions passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Supreme Court,respectively,in the matter and it was evident from the fact that all the trustees of AIT were named as accused in the FIR despite the fact that they were not found guilty by the Vidhan Sabha panel,which initially probed the matter and recommended registration of a criminal case, averred Mehta,while attributing the demand of stay to malicious tactics to delay the trial proceedings. He also dared the defence counsels to knock at the doors of the apex court,if they felt that trial proceedings or submission of challan in the case were contrary to the apex courts four directions,which nowhere asked to either stay the submission of challan or continue trial proceedings. Amarinder and all other accused had already been granted regular bail in the case registered by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB). On February 10,the VB had presented a challan against 16 persons named as accused in the FIR registered in Mohali after grilling Amarinder at his Moti Bagh Palace in Patiala. The case was registered against Amarinder,Jagjit,Sharma and others after Amarinder was indicted by a Punjab Assembly panel and expelled from the house in September 2008. The nine-member Assembly panel had charged them with releasing 32.10 acre of AIT land for development by private builders in violation of rules following a complaint by a senior Congress leader and former Assembly Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh,who had raised the issue in the House during Amarinders tenure as Chief Minister between 2002-2007. On the reference of the Assembly,Amarinder and others were booked under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and accused of cheating,forgery,tampering of official records and criminal conspiracy. This was the third case registered by the VB against Amarinder after the SAD-BJP combine came to power in 2007. However,Amarinder attributes all these cases to political vendetta while pleading innocence.
