Amarinder expulsion case adjourned till tomorrow

Chandigarh, Sep 11 (UNI) The Punjab and Haryana High Court today adjourned till tomorrow further hearing on the plea of former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh against the state Vidhan Sabha order divesting him of the House's membership for the rest of its term and declaring the Patiala city constituency represented by him as vacant.

The September 10 order of the House, which has been challeanged by Capt Singh, came up for hearing before the Division Bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Ajay Tewari.

The resolution passed by the House on the concluding day of the monsoon session of the assembly yesterday accepted the report of the House Special Committee holding Capt Singh guilty of misusing his powers in exempting 32.10 acres of prime land along NH-I in Amritsar from a development scheme of the Improvement Trust.

The scam took place during the tenure of Capt Singh and in March 2006 he had assured the assembly that an inquiry by a House Committee would be held in the case. However, no inquiry took place and the decision to probe the issue was taken up by the present House after the SAD-BJP came to power and for this a 9-member House Committee was established in January this year.

The report of the House Committee was presented in the assembly on September 5 and yesterday a resolution was passed to expel Capt Singh. The others indicted in this report include, former Local Bodies Minister Chaudhary Jagjit Singh, former Urban Development Minister, the late Raghunath Sahay Puri and former Amritsar Improvement Trust Chairman, Jugal Kishore Sharma.

After his expulsion yesterday, Capt Singh had announced that he would approach the High Court as the decision of the House was unconstitutional.

UNI XC HS RR NS1735