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Appointments of 2 officers at the centre of Punjab Congress crisis
While appointing the new DGP and advocate general, CM Charanjit Channi straightway ignored Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu’s choices
The appointments of Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota as the director general of police (DGP) and APS Deol as the advocate general (AG) were the final straw leading to the resignation of Navjot Singh Sidhu as the Punjab Congress president.
In both the appointments, chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi straightway ignored Sidhu’s choices. For the advocate general’s post, Sidhu’s first choice was senior lawyer DS Patwalia, who had defended the former cricketer in a 1988 road rage case.
A day after Channi took oath as CM, Sidhu even met Patwalia and promised him the state’s top law officer’s job, it is learnt. But a section of lawyers told Channi that the Patwalia family had close links with the BJP as his elder brother Paramjit Singh Patwalia had served as additional solicitor general in the previous Narendra Modi government.
Senior leaders claimed that advocate Anmol Ratan Sidhu emerged as the unanimous choice for the job because of his old associations with the Congress but Channi prevailed and appointed Deol. Sidhu objected to Deol’s appointment as he had represented former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in the cases of 2015 police firing during protests against the Bargari sacrilege.
Deol recently managed to get blanket bail for Saini from the Punjab and Haryana High Court stating that the ex-DGP will not be arrested in any case until elections in Punjab are over. The court had also stayed all investigations against Saini.
According to some senior lawyers linked with the Bargari sacrilege cases, just before change in the guard in the Congress, the state government was preparing to challenge the high court orders related to FIRs 11 and 13 registered by the vigilance bureau in which Saini was granted blanket bail.
“But now, if the government wants to challenge the blanket bail orders in the apex court, consent has to be given by Deol as AG. Can you expect a lawyer to challenge the same order which he himself secured? What can be more apt case of conflict of interest?” asked a senior lawyer.
Deol, on the other hand, has claimed that he has sent back all files related to cases linked with Saini. “My priority now is to serve the interests of the state. As a professional lawyer, we get cases of all sorts of clients,” he told some news channels the day he was appointed as AG.
Channi preferred Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota, a 1988-batch IPS officer, for the DGP’s post over 1986-batch IPS officer S Chattopadhyaya, Sidhu’s first choice.
The orders to give charge to Chattopadhyaya were about to be issued but Channi put his foot down after getting feedback that his case for the regular appointment for the post may not get approval of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) due to some controversies surrounding him.
The Channi camp claims that the CM was apprehensive that Chattopadhya, who was head of the SIT probing drug charges against a senior police official, may use his position to settle personal scores. But the CM was not in mood to let a turf war restart in the police force, they said.
Sahota led-SIT had blamed 2 Sikh youths for sacrilege
When the sacrilege cases and police action Sikh protesters rocked the state in 2015, Sahota (then ADGP, law and order) was appointed head of the first SIT constituted by the then Akali government to probe the cases.
Sahota claimed to have crack the case and even addressed a press conference, claiming that the Bargari sacrilege incident was “a handiwork of some foreign handlers”.
The SIT also arrested two brothers, Rupinder and Jaswinder Singh, both Sikhs and residents of Panjgrain village in Faridkot, saying they were in touch with their Australia-based handlers who were funding them.
But his theory fell flat soon when the media busted the claims of purported “foreign handlers”. The government released the two brothers on November 2, 2015, and handed over the probe to the CBI. The two brothers had refused to undergo lie-detector test in subsequent probes.
“Those who tortured our kids to give clean chits to the Badals are now being given plum posts…,” Sidhu said in a video released on Wednesday.
