Chandigarh : A war of words between senior Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government over the stay of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in a Punjab jail during the previous government intensified on Monday with the former deputy chief minister threatening to file a defamation case against chief minister Bhagwant Mann for indulging in “character assassination”.
Randhawa, who was the minister in-charge of jails department in the previous Congress government, criticised Mann for accusing him of spending government money for holding Ansari in the state jail. The chief minister was levelling baseless allegations without ascertaining facts and official procedures, the Congress leader said, claiming that he had no role in hiring a senior advocate in the case.
Mann on Sunday said his government will recover ₹55 lakh incurred by the previous government on legal fee for keeping the gangster-turned-politician from Uttar Pradesh in Punjab jail from then chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Randhawa. Ansari was in Rupnagar jail from January 2019 to April 2021 in an extortion case registered in Mohali before the Supreme Court directed the Punjab government to give his custody to Uttar Pradesh Police.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Randhawa challenged Mann to send a recovery notice to him. “I will take him to court. It has become his habit to indulge in character assassination...I will not tolerate such humiliation,” the former deputy CM said, disputing the amount of ₹55 lakh as claimed by Mann. He put the fee of the senior Supreme Court lawyer in the Ansari case at ₹17.6 lakh. The jail department was not the petitioner but the respondent in the case, he said, daring Mann to send the recovery notice.
{{/usCountry}}Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Randhawa challenged Mann to send a recovery notice to him. “I will take him to court. It has become his habit to indulge in character assassination...I will not tolerate such humiliation,” the former deputy CM said, disputing the amount of ₹55 lakh as claimed by Mann. He put the fee of the senior Supreme Court lawyer in the Ansari case at ₹17.6 lakh. The jail department was not the petitioner but the respondent in the case, he said, daring Mann to send the recovery notice.
{{/usCountry}}After the Congress leader’s press conference, Mann tweeted the July 1 file noting in which it was mentioned that engaging the senior advocate for defending the case of Ansari was not required as no public interest or the interest of the state of Punjab was involved in that case. “So, the money of the state of Punjab cannot be utilised for meeting out such expenditure,” it read. It further said the expenditure so incurred may be recovered equally from Randhawa and Amarinder Singh as they had proposed and approved respectively to engage the advocate for the case.
Ansari was given 5-star treatment: AAP
Later, AAP state chief spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang claimed that the Congress government had gone out of its way to facilitate Ansari and even defended his remand in Punjab in the apex court. “Ansari was kept in Rupnagar jail and given a five-star treatment. His family was provided a house near the jail with all facilities, but Randhawa is saying that he has nothing to do with it all,” he alleged.