Court orders provisional attachment of Punjab ex-DGP Sumedh Saini’s house in Chandigarh

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, July 17

In a fresh trouble for former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini, a Mohali court has issued orders for provisionally attaching a house in Chandigarh’s Sector 20 where Saini is residing at present.

Sartej Singh Narula, Special public prosecutor, said the orders were issued by additional district and sessions judge P S Grewal. He said the court has appointed District Collector, Mohali, as receiver with the direction to him to carry out the process of aforesaid attachment of the Saini’s house in Chandigarh and to receive the rent of the same at the agreed rate of Rs 2.5 lakh from Saini.

It has been alleged that the said property was purchased using tainted money at the behest of Saini. The allegations were probed by the state vigilance department, after which the vigilance department had filed an application in court for attaching the property.

As per the allegations a serving executive engineer (XEN) of Punjab Government Nimrat Deep Singh had obtained bribe and tainted money for Saini in the name of his father, Surinderjit Singh Jaspal who had allegedly bought the house using the same money. It has been alleged that Saini was shown to be living in the house after it was renovated in October 2018.

It is pertinent to mention here that Saini is already facing a murder case in December 1991 disappearance of CITCO junior engineer Balwant Singh Multani, who was son of former IAS officer Darshan Singh Multani. On December 22, 2020, the Mohali police had filed a charge sheet against Saini him in connection with the murder case.

The application by the Investigating officer (IO) of the Vigilance Department reads the house was meant for Saini and no money in the shape of rent had ever been received. Instead Rs 6.4 crore was paid by Saini to a man identified as Surinder G Singh Jaspal without any agreement to sell and later, a fabricated agreement to sell had been placed on record which was neither on stamp paper, nor attested by any witness and was signed only by Sumeet Singh Sani and Surinderjit Singh Jaspal.

The IO in his application had further prayed for attaching the property under provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance, 1944, as per Section 18 A of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, as amended by the act of 2018.