Counsel seeks CVC assistance

CHANDIGARH, Jan 6: Continuing with the arguments in the case pertaining to the sale of three sugar mills to private parties in Punjab, th...

CHANDIGARH, Jan 6: Continuing with the arguments in the case pertaining to the sale of three sugar mills to private parties in Punjab, the counsel for the Ganna Utpadak Sangharsh Samiti, Dasuya, today claimed hampering of investigations due to interference by quot;senior officialsquot;.

Arguing before Justice Swatanter Kumar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the counsel stated that the investigations in the case were still incomplete and challans had not been submitted against the accused.

Further, the involvement of the suspects in the case could not be probed into. Even, investigations into assets beyond their known sources of income had been stopped, the counsel stated.

He further alleged that Inspector General of Police K.K Attri had tried to quot;sabotage the investigationsquot;. Questioning the validity of the Investigating Officer8217;s report re-evaluated by him, he claimed the absence of a quot;third evaluating authorityquot;. Only the IO or the Court could evaluate the evidence, he argued. The supervisory officer could only assist the IO, he added.Seeking directions for discarding the IG8217;s report, he stated that the alleged forging of resolutions and the quot;tailor madequot; agreements had been overlooked.

The IG, contrary to the IO8217;s findings, had concluded that the government had the power to sell the sugar mills and none of the accused, except the then Managing Director of Sugar Fed Karl Reddy, were guilty, he added.Claiming his and the IO8217;s report to be quot;conflictingquot;, he sought the transferring of the matter to the Central Vigilance Committee for deciding which one was quot;correctquot;. The Court, he added, had the power to transfer the case for ensuring quot;uncorruptedquot; investigations.

It may be recalled that the Samiti was instrumental in initiating the investigations in case after it handed over a memorandum to the inspecting judge to Hoshiarpur district courts Justice V.K. Jhanji. The case will come up for further hearing on January 8.