Guarded Majithia questions ED investigation procedure

Questioning the Enforcement Directorate (ED) procedure of investigating the multi-crore-rupee drug scandal, Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia has said he has been the target of selective “leaks” and challans since November 2013.

Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia.HT/Photo

Questioning the Enforcement Directorate (ED) procedure of investigating the multi-crore-rupee drug scandal, Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia has said he has been the target of selective “leaks” and challans since November 2013.

A day after HT reported that he had received Rs 35 lakh as election fund from synthetic drug racket accused Jagjit Singh Chahal as claimed in the ED chargesheet filed in a Patiala court on March 2, the minister talked to select journalists at his official residence in Chandigarh on Tuesday.

“Any thorough investigation agency will realise that in the court of law, uncorroborated evidence has no value; the investigation can’t go on based on just hearsay; and here everything is hearsay,” said a guarded Majithia, not willing to go beyond the notes in his hand.

He stopped short of naming any person or institution behind the “leaks” but dropped enough hints that it could be the Centre’s investigating agency. “If any money laundering has taken place, has any trail been established? If the consignments of pseudoephedrine drug were sent abroad, does the investigation say how and where?” said Majithia, adding that it would be inappropriate for him to take names in a media interaction.

“The smear campaign against me is planned to coincide with the Punjab Vidhan Sabha session and the drug racket case hearing in the Punjab and Haryana high court,” said the minister.

He also sees “somersaulting statements” in the entire investigation. “The extent of the drug racket was said to be `6,000 crore initially; and what came out lately is Rs 35 lakh after repeated recording of the statements of the accused,” Majithia said, adding: “There is no mention of Chahal’s first, second and third statements, but only of the fourth he recorded on February 9; after I had been confronted on December 26 last year based on his previous statements.”

“How could somebody have kept giving me money for five years as election fund?” asked Majithia, to say that the revelations were “vague, reckless, baseless, and stupid”; and that he pitied the accusers. “The fresh revelations vindicate my stand that it’s vendetta,” said the revenue minister, accepting that he knew Chahal and Bittu Aulakh (who are under arrest in the case) but “only as Amritsar businessmen”.

He denied knowing anyone named Pindi or Laadi.

Majithia claimed he had not visited Canada in 11 years, and while the name Satta to him was strange, he had met NRI (non-resident Indian) Satpreet Singh, whom a Canadian minister had on his official delegation. He did not say where and when he had met the delegation but said Satpreet’s brother worked in the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office.



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