Ambika Bhardwaj
Published On: January 04, 2022 at 14:26 IST
The Supreme Court denied safety to suspended Additional Director General of Police Gurjinder Pal Singh in a Case lodged under the Prevention of Corruption Act for accusations of disproportionate resources on Monday.
A Bench comprised of CJI NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Hima Kohli rejected Singh’s special leave plea lodged in response to the Chattisgarh High Court’s order attempting to deny him interim safety from arrest and a stay in further proceedings in the FIR filed against him under Sections 13(3)b) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The relief has been requested for the period wherein the main plea for curtailing of the FIR is currently on hold before the High Court. The State was represented by Senior Advocate Rohatgi and Advocate Sumeer Sodhi, while the Petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate UR Lalit and Advocate Bansuri Swaraj.
Senior Advocate UR Lalit made submissions before the Court, contending that the asserted FIR is totally flawed and driven by political vindictiveness. Even so, the Court dismissed the Complaint. According to the Petitioner, frivolous FIRs were lodged against him for not being excessively obedient to the prevailing government in the State of Chhattisgarh.
The current special leave Petition alleges that, in connection with the Nagrik Aapurti Nigam scam, also recognised as the NAN scam, in the state of Chattisgarh, the Petitioner was repetitively compelled, as Economic Offences Wing/Anti-Corruption Bureau, to prosecute the prior Chief Minister and his wife.
However, while he expressed his dissatisfaction with it, claiming that the evidence available was insufficient to continue against the CM and his wife, a suspicious political vendetta began against him in the presence of various frivolous preliminary inquiries.
On June 29, the State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed a FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Singh based on preliminary observations into concerns that he had accumulated disproportionate resources.
On July 1, 2021, the Petitioner’s house was raided by the Police, who supposedly discovered some bits of paper in a drain behind the Petitioner’s house, which they later recreated into some notes, criticise, statistics report against political parties, and also against a few delegates of the various wings of the State.
The components of the recreated records are said to be unauthorised vengeance and anger directed at the State Government.