HC raps Vigilance for slipshod probe, state for casual handling

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 20

More than three months after a Vigilance probe was ordered into the cases where corporations and improvement trusts in Punjab did not contest matters involving ownership and possessory rights of public properties to favour private parties, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today admonished the Vigilance Department for conducting a slipshod inquiry and the state for its casual handling of the case.

Justice Deepak Sibal also ordered Punjab Director-General of Police (Vigilance) to remain present in the court along with all relevant record. Rejecting an affidavit filed by a Vigilance Bureau DSP, Justice Sibal said it was not by the Chief Secretary as directed.

Even otherwise the affidavit was palpably vague. “Whether the state government is even contemplating framing a policy to prevent the happening of the situation is completely missing from the affidavit filed. It is also shocking that the inquiry, if any, conducted by the Vigilance Bureau for over a period of three-and-a-half months has not yielded any reports from 10 municipal corporations and 28 improvement trusts,” Justice Sibal asserted, while appointing senior advocate Anupam Gupta as amicus curiae in the case.

Justice Sibal had ordered the probe after Ludhiana Municipal Corporation’s counsel had told the Bench that there were, in his knowledge, several instances where the defence of corporation was struck off by the trial court in suits filed against it for non-filing of written statements and such orders remained unchallenged.

Justice Sibal had observed the corporation owned and managed public property. As such, it was a serious matter where suits filed against the corporation involving ownership and possessory rights of public property were going un-rebutted and unrepresented.

Justice Sibal had further directed the Punjab Advocate-General to get an inquiry conducted through the DGP, Vigilance “to the effect that in the last three years how many cases are there where the corporations as also the improvement trusts did not file statements or proceeded against ex parte leading to the suits getting decreed in favour of private parties.”