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Setback in 2015 police firing case: Bajwa wants Punjab AG to step down, Capt backs Nanda
Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Partap Bajwa fired the first salvo by asking Punjab AG Atul Nanda, who was handpicked by Amarinder for the post, to take responsibility for repeated professional failures and resign from his position. The criticism of the advocate general was summarily dismissed by the chief minister who termed it baseless and totally unjustified
Chandigarh: A war of words erupted in the ruling Congress in Punjab on Wednesday with Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa demanding advocate general Atul Nanda’s resignation in the wake of the setback suffered by the state government in the Punjab and Haryana high court in the 2015 Kotkapura violence case.
The criticism of the advocate general and other lawyers engaged by the state government to fight the case was summarily dismissed by chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh who termed it “baseless” and “totally unjustified”. Though Amarinder and Bajwa did not directly name each other, their statements signal the resumption of a fresh slugfest between the two after a brief four-month lull.
The Congress MP’s demand came a day after party MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu targeted the state government. The high court had last week quashed the probe reports submitted by Punjab Police in two FIRs registered in connection with the violence, directing the state government to constitute a new SIT, excluding inspector general of police (IGP) Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh.
Bajwa fired the first salvo by asking Nanda, who was handpicked by Amarinder for the post, to take responsibility for repeated professional failures and resign from his position. “If he is unwilling to do so, I urge the state government to relieve him from his position and appoint a new AG,” he said in a written statement.
The MP said that by refusing to take responsibility, the advocate general would seem to be more interested in remaining in his post, rather than focusing on his duties. “In the present case, Punjab has an AG who does not appear himself but gets lawyers from Delhi to appear in front of the HC. This clearly shows that the AG himself is aware of his own failings,” he alleged, claiming that the state paid ₹5.5 crore to Delhi lawyers for the job.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state president Bhagwant Mann also blamed the state government, claiming that the fiasco has exposed the collusion between Amarinder and the Badal family. “The Amarinder government had appointed state advocate general Atul Nanda who has a team of 150 lawyers only to lose the case,” he alleged at a press conference in Patiala.
Reacting sharply to allegations against Nanda and other lawyers, Amarinder said the opposition parties and their leaders were deliberately trying to provoke public sentiment on the sensitive issue to create trouble ahead of the 2022 assembly elections. He accused vested interests of attempts to confuse the people with their deliberately misleading statements on different aspects of the sacrilege litigation. Contrary to what these vested interests, including leaders of the SAD and AAP, were projecting, the fact was that the cases relating to the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib were being handled separately in the courts from the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing cases, he said, defending the AG and his team.
