Bail plea of former minister rejected in City Centre scam

Ludhiana, Apr 26 (UNI) A local court today rejected the anticipatory bail plea of former Punjab Congress minister Choudhry Jagjit Singh and two senior officials of Today Homes and Infrastructure in the multi crore City Centre scam, in which former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh is one of the 18 alleged accused.

The bail application of Choudhry Jagjit Singh and Saurabh Gupta and Sanjiv Gupta, both senior officials of Today Homes was rejected by Additional Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh after hearing the arguments of the defence and procesution counsels. Today Homes had executed the City Centre project under the guidance of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT), which was directly under the jurisdiction of Choudhry Jagjit Singh, who was Local Bodies minister in the Amarinder government.

However the court granted bail to Ashwajit, a senior functionary of a firm that had provided consultancy services to Today Homes for the multi crore project, which came under a scanner late last year following an expose by a television channel. The then opposition party the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had made this an election issue and had alleged that money had exchanged hands leading to a huge loss to the state exchequer.

Capt Singh has already been granted bail till July in the case by the Punjab and Haryana High court. The court had directed him to join investigations but the former chief minister is yet to present himself before the state Vigilance Bureau (VB) that had probed and registered the case.

Meanwhile the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) today sent LIT officials, chief engineer Manmohan Singh and executive officer (EO) D C Garg to 14 days judicial custody. The two were arrested on Friday last by the VB.

The other prominent persons named by the VB in the case are former Punjab Congress chief H S Hanspal, LIT former chairman Paramjit Singh Sibia and one Capt Rajesh, said to be a close associate of Capt Singh. Besides the two LIT officials, two employees of Today Homes have also been arrested by the VB and are currently in judicial custody.

UNI