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High court seeks Punjab’s reply on Sukhbir Badal’s plea seeking quashing of FIR
SAD chief Sukhbir Badal further claimed that no investigation into the fact of “illegal mining” being done at the spot had been conducted
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday sought a response from the Punjab government on a plea by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal seeking the quashing of an FIR registered on July 1, 2021, at police station Beas in Amritsar. The high court bench of justice Raj Mohan Singh has sought a response by January 18.
The FIR was registered under of Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, (disobedience to an order by a public servant, causing obstruction) and criminal intimidation and unlawful act. The allegations were of “obstruction in mining operations of a private company”. At the mining site, Sukhbir alleged that illegal mining was going on near the bridge on the Beas river and he allegedly started threatening the employees and staff of the company and obstructed and interfered in the legal mining operations at the de-silting site. The company, M/s Friends and Company has also been arrayed, as a party in the case.
The plea terms the investigation “malicious” and alleges that it was to cover up the “misdeed of persons enjoying the patronage of the government” of the day. “The investigation in the FIR is one-sided, biased and unfair as the allegations levelled prior in point of time have been completely brushed aside and a new case has been set up to falsely implicate the petitioner and his co-accused. The action on the part of the investigating agency smacks of political malafides,” the plea alleges.
Badal further claimed that no investigation into the fact of “illegal mining” being done at the spot had been conducted. Merely by recording statements of two mining officials, it has been concluded that nothing illegal was being done at the spot, he claimed, further alleging that the probe was an act of “political vengeance”.
