Haven’t quit, says Punjab AG APS Deol amid resignation talk

Chandigarh, November 1

Confusion continues to prevail over the issue of senior advocate APS Deol’s resignation from the post of Punjab Advocate General.

Deol, who refused to take phone calls in the morning amidst reports of his resignation, in the evening said: “There is nothing of the sort.”

“Neither has there been any resignation, nor any talk about it. The Chief Minister, too, has not talked about it and no such talk has come from the Chief Minister’s Office. The speculation (on resignation) keeps going on. Sometimes some pressures are built, but there is nothing of the sort,” Deol asserted.

Sources in Deol’s office in the morning, on the other hand, had claimed that the senior advocate had handed over his resignation to the CM.

A senior government functionary in the CMO said as and when the resignation of the AG comes, it would be tabled in the Cabinet before being forwarded to the Punjab Governor.

Deol was appointed after the post fell vacant following Atul Nanda’s resignation soon after Capt Amarinder Singh stepped down as Chief Minister. His appointment had generated debate since the beginning as he was, at one point of time, the counsel for former Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini and Inspector General (IG) Paramraj Singh Umranangal, both accused in the Behbal Kalan police firing case.

The appointment had come as a surprise as incidents of sacrilege and subsequent police firing in Faridkot district’s Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in 2015 have always been considered politically sensitive.

It had also led to a legal debate on the issue of conflict of interest primarily on the ground that Deol, having been Saini and Umranangal’s counsel, would neither be able to appear nor advise the state in their cases and related matters.

In an attempt to settle the storm, senior advocate RS Bains was appointed special public prosecutor for the politically sensitive sacrilege matters. The Punjab Government, subsequently, told the Punjab and Haryana High Court during the hearing of a petition challenging his appointment that “only regular public prosecutor will appear before the trial court till the next date of hearing”. —TNS