High Court grants interim bail to Former Punjab FM Manpreet Badal

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted interim bail to former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal in connection with alleged irregularities in the purchase of a property in Bathinda.

Badal had moved the high court after a court in Bathinda rejected his anticipatory bail plea on October 4.

His counsel Arshdeep Singh Cheema said the bench of Justice Vikas Bahl granted interim bail to Badal, who is now with the BJP. The detailed order is yet to be released.

In his anticipatory bail plea, Badal contended that "the FIR is a malafide exercise of power and has been done at the behest of the chief minister who intends to settle his personal scores rather than allowing the state agencies to work independently."

The petitioner also submitted, "The present FIR is one of the links in the chain, that the present AAP government in the State of Punjab is trying to fasten around all the person, be it political leaders, people closely associated with them or common person who in some way are/were connected or close to the previous government regime.

The powerful ruling clique in the State of Punjab has sought victimisation, persecution and public humiliation of selected targets at the top of its agenda, the petitioner has submitted.

The petitioner is being targeted and entangled in this inquiry/investigation due to the political intervention of the chief minister of Punjab. The chief minister has declared publicly that he will fix the petitioner in a criminal case.

"The chief minister made a press statement that an FIR against the petitioner has already been registered and he will be arrested soon much before the said FIR came to be registered, according to the petition.

The Punjab Vigilance Bureau had booked Badal and five others in connection with the case. An arrest warrant had earlier been issued by the court in Bathinda against Badal.

Several teams of the bureau had conducted raids at various locations in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan but could not trace Badal.

The vigilance bureau had launched an investigation into the matter based on former MLA Sarup Chand Singla's 2021 complaint alleging irregularities in the purchase of the property at a prime location in Bathinda.

BJP leader Singla, who was earlier with the Shiromani Akali Dal, alleged that Badal, as a minister in the previous Congress dispensation, abused his position to convert two commercial plots into a residential plot for himself.

A case was registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sections 420 (cheating) and 468 (forgery), and also under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

During the probe, it was found that Badal allegedly abused his position to purchase two plots measuring 1,560 square yards in Bathinda's Model Town phase-1, thereby causing a financial loss of lakhs of rupees to the state exchequer, according to the vigilance bureau.

It was found that Badal allegedly colluded with the officials of the Bathinda Development Authority and misled the general public during the bidding of plots in 2021.

Fake maps were uploaded to prevent public participation in the bidding process, the bureau had alleged.