Multi-crore scandal: Amarinder's arrest stayed

A Ludhiana court on Thursday stayed the arrest of former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, his son and son-in-law till January 22 in the multi-crore Ludhiana City Centre scandal that rocked the state ahead of the last assembly elections.

Amarinder and other accused appeared in the court of District Sessions Judge G K Rai in Ludhiana amid tight security arrangements. Journalists were also not allowed to enter the court premises to cover the proceedings.

Judge Rai stayed the arrest of Amarinder, his son Raninder Singh, son-in-law Raminder Singh, former local bodies minister Jagjit Singh and six trustees of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust till January 22.

The regular bail plea of six officials -- Davinder Kumar Anand, Baljit Singh, Jagjit, Sunil Sharma, Vinay Subika and Ashok Chopra -- of the Delhi-based Today Homes, which was to execute the LCC project, was rejected by the court.

This was Amarinder's first appearance before the court in the case in which the Punjab Vigilance Bureau had filed a 106-page chargesheet last year against him and 35 others for alleged corruption and cheating. All the accused were on Thursday given copies of the chargesheet.

Amarinder and others have been charged under various sections of the IPC relating to criminal breach of trust (409), cheating (420), forgery (465), forgery of valuable security (467), forgery for purpose of cheating (468), and using as genuine a forged document (471), criminal conspiracy (120-B) besides under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Of those accused, former LIT chairman Paramjit Singh Sibia has been declared a proclaimed offender by the court as he was absconding. The court had on December 24 issued summons to Amarinder Singh and other accused directing them to be present on Thursday.

Three weeks after Parkash Singh Badal became the chief minister, the Vigilance Bureau in its FIR had accused the Amarinder of violating all norms in patronising and abetting the dilution of terms and conditions for favouring a particular party in executing the LCC project.

During last February's assembly polls, the LCC scam was a major issue for the Akali Dal, which charged Amarinder with colluding with the developer in the allotment of the Rs 3,000 crore project.

Amarinder and others were booked last March and vigilance sleuths had interrogated them on a number of times.

Though Amarinder's wife Preneet Kaur was not named a suspect, the Lok Sabha MP from Patiala had also secured bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Former state Congress chief H S Hanspal and former media advisor to Amarinder, B I S Chahal, were also named as suspects during the initial investigations but later their names were dropped.