Minister gets 1-yr jail for misuse of office

Punjab Tota Singh is second member of Badals Cabinet to be convicted after Jagir Kaur; gets bail

A Mohali court on Saturday sentenced Punjab Agriculture Minister Tota Singh to a year in jail for misusing his position as education minister in the previous SAD-BJP regime and misusing the car of Punjab School Education Board.

The judge also fined him Rs 30,000,which Singh,who was in the court,paid immediately. The minister,in his late seventies,however,got some reprieve when he was granted bail to enable him to approach a higher court to challenge the conviction.

He was granted bail after he furnished a bond of Rs 25,000.

Tota Singh also got relief in another case when the court acquitted him of owning assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Immediately after the judgment was pronounced,Singh,when asked by reporters outside the court if would quit the ministry,said,This is the prerogative of the Chief Minister and the party to decide on my future role.

Singh said he is a loyal party worker and would abide by the decision of the party and the Chief Minister.

Besides registering a case against Singh for allegedly misusing his official position,Punjab Vigilance Bureau had also booked him for possessing property worth Rs 10 crore,which was stated to be disproportionate to his known sources of income during the SAD-BJP regime from 1997-2002.

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The cases were registered in 2002 when the Congress was in power.

Singh,who was then education minister,was inducted as a Cabinet minister in the Parkash Singh Badal government in March this year.

Incidentally,Singhs name figured in the clerk recruitment scam too. Also,there were allegations against him that papers worth over Rs 5 crore purchased during his term as education minister were of substandard quality. However,the charges could not be proved as the witnesses back tracked from their statements.

Singh is the second minister in the SAD-BJP government to be get a jail term after Bibi Jagir Kaur.

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Kaur,a former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee chief,was on March 30 sentenced to five years in jail in connection with a case relating to the mysterious death of her daughter. She resigned soon after and is currently behind bars.