No bail for former Punjab health minister Vijay Singla in corruption case

The court denied Singla bail keeping in view the gravity of the alleged offences. “This court is of the considered view that the petitioner is not entitled to be released on bail in this case as he is alleged to have indulged in the alleged corrupt practices despite his being the health minister and despite his being an elected representative of the people,” said judge Parminder Singh Grewal of a special court.

The court order said the complainant in the case was a superintending engineer with the Punjab Health System Corporation in Mohali on deputation. About one month ago, he was allegedly called to Room No.203 of Punjab Bhawan by Singla’s officer on special duty, Pradeep Kumar. Singla then allegedly told the engineer that whatever his aide said should be considered as having been said by the minister himself.

Kumar allegedly told the engineer that the latter had allotted about Rs 41 crore for construction works and that about Rs 17 crore had been paid to contractors in March. Thus the engineer should pay the minister and his aide a bribe of Rs 1.16 crore—2 per cent of the total amount of Rs 58 crore.

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The court order stated, “It has been further alleged that finally on May 20, they had told the complainant to pay them Rs 10 lakh and to further pay 1 per cent amount as a commission to them for the allotted work or for the payment made to the contractors. It has been further alleged that at this the complainant has told them that he has only Rs 2. 50 lakh in his account and he is having a credit limit of Rs 3 lakh, and in order to save himself from harassment, the complainant had [agreed to] pay Rs 5 lakh only.”

Kumar, the co-accused, allegedly called the engineer on May 3 to the secretariat, where he met the former and Singla. The engineer had allegedly produced the recorded telephonic conversation held between him and the duo, wherein Singla told him to pay Rs 5 lakh to Kumar.

“Thus, this court is of the considered view that although the petitioner has suffered custodial interrogation and he is in judicial custody at present after his arrest on May 24, the petitioner was holding the very responsible position of the health minister…as an elected MLA of the ruling party and therefore, it is not expected from the petitioner that the petitioner should make the alleged demands of huge amount of Rs.1.16 as 2 per cent commission as a bribe of the total amount of Rs.58 crore, which was later on scaled down to 1 per cent commission as a bribe, and which was further allegedly scaled down to Rs 5 lakh when the complainant allegedly expressed his inability to make the payment of such huge amount of money as commission/bribe to the petitioner,” the order read.

The court also held that the arguments raised by Singla’s counsel could be considered only after the completion of the investigation, but added that its opinions applied only to the bail petition and not to the merits of the corruption case.