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High court bench refers petition from Bhagwant Mann’s aide Rajbir Singh Ghuman to chief justice in corruption case
A division bench had ordered the registration of the FIR and that order is under challenge before the Supreme Court.
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A single-judge bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday referred the petition from chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s officer on special duty (OSD) Rajbir Singh Ghuman, to the chief justice. Ghuman has sought the quashing of the corruption case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against him and five others.
The petition was listed for hearing before the bench of justice JS Bedi, which observed that a division bench had ordered the registration of the FIR and that order is under challenge before the Supreme Court. Hence, the petition should be put up before the chief justice for appropriate orders.
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No investigation into corruption offence
The petition primarily challenges the October 5 FIR registered by the federal agency on the grounds that the CBI did not obtain the mandatory sanction under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Under the Act, the petition argues, no police officer can conduct any investigation into a corruption offence alleged against a public servant without the previous approval of the government.
Hours after the high court order on October 5, the CBI registered a criminal case based on three letters written by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to the Punjab government alleging corruption at the top level. Following the FIR, the CBI conducted raids at Ghuman’s premises and five other locations across Chandigarh and Punjab.
According to the ED letters, which were based on material seized during an ongoing money-laundering investigation involving GMADA land allotments, a private individual named Nitin Gohal acted as an intermediary for Ghuman. The ED alleged that Gohal, in collusion with Ghuman and other associates, including Bir Devinder and Jitin Gohal, operated an organised bribery network from the chief minister’s office.
The network allegedly collected crores in cash and real estate in exchange for influencing IAS/IPS postings, leaking confidential government files, facilitating arms licences, and clearing commercial projects.
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The petition asserts that the CBI, without having the sanction required under the Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, “illegally carried the search” at Ghuman’s residence on October 6.
It claims that the FIR and searches came without obtaining the mandatory approval of the competent authority, even though the law provides only one exception for initiating a probe against a public servant — arrest on the spot in a trap case — which, the petition says, does not apply to the present case.
