‘Fix Bansi’ petition puts Chautala in a fix

It was filed by an Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) member five years ago and was aimed at making the then Bansi-Lal led Haryana government sq...

It was filed by an Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) member five years ago and was aimed at making the then Bansi-Lal led Haryana government squirm. But the petition against the then HVP-BJP government, protesting against the withdrawal of cases against ministers and their henchmen, appears to have backfired: it has put the pardon-happy Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD government, which has granted amnesty to around 24 murder convicts, on the mat.

Filed in 1997 in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the petition had demanded a CBI inquiry into the withdrawal of criminal cases registered against the then ministers and their henchmen. Justice G.S. Singhvi has now directed the Haryana government to produce the records of all cases of pardon over the past five years, including the FIRs, by May 16. While Bansi Lal granted one pardon, the Chautala government has pardoned at least 24 criminals, convicted mostly of murder, over the past two years.

Interestingly, petitioner Sat Pal Kadiyan, a former member of the INLD’s Rohtak unit, has since ‘‘disappeared’’, said his lawyer Ranjan Lakhanpal. ‘‘He came to file the petition but after that, there was no trace of him,’’ Lakhanpal told The Indian Express.

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Among the people who were named in the original petition were:

– Mani Ram Godara and Karan Singh Dalal, then ministers in Bansi Lal’s Cabinet, BJP Leader Ram Chander Bainda and industrialist and then Haryana Vikas Party MP O.P. Jindal.

– Shreyans Jain, a BJP candidate for the Hansi Municipal Corporation election who was convicted of killing Krishan Kumar Khandewala, another candidate. Jain was the lone person to be pardoned by Bansi Lal.

Among the murder convicts who have benefitted from Chautala government’s generosity:

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– Sat Prakash, Satbir Singh and Himmat Singh, convicted of stabbing to death Jasbir, an MA Economics student at Kurukshetra. In fact, Satbir even got a job with the Haryana civil secretariat after his pardon.

– Jagtar Singh, convicted of killing his relative Jeet Singh. Jagtar is from Rori, the constituency of Chautala’s son, Abhey Singh.

n Sarvjit, convicted of killing his wife, Surinder Kaur. He belongs to Chautala’s hometown, Sirsa.

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