Punjab and Haryana high court granted anticipatory bail to Sumedh Singh Saini in a corruption case. Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh is a 1982 batch IPS officer. Saini has been SSP of 6 districts. Sumedh Saini has been SSP of Batala, Ferozepur, Ludhiana, Bathinda, Rupnagar, and Chandigarh. In August 1991, Saini was the SSP of Chandigarh when he was fatally attacked. Sumedh survived the attack but three security personnel were killed.
The CBI case against Saini for kidnapping a Ludhiana businessman along with two others was also a long one. In Chandigarh, he came under controversy for slapping an army lieutenant colonel and for arguing with an engineer in the deputy commissioner’s party while he was an SSP in Bathinda.
On October 14, 2015, a demonstration by Sikhs in Kotkapura against the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib and the arrest of the accused was lathi-charged by the police. On the same day, two Sikh youths were killed in a police firing in Behbal Kalan.
After this, the government came under pressure to remove Saini from the post of Chief of Police, and Saini was replaced by Suresh Arora, a 1982 batch officer.
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Ex DGP Saini Is Accused in Kotkapura Firing & Other Cases
Saini faces several cases of human rights violations as a police officer in Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s. Sumedh Saini has also been named in the behbal kalan case while protestors were protesting against the 2015 Guru Granth Sahib desecration controversy
Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Saini was arrested by Vigilance Bureau Punjab late on August 18, 2021, evening for the corruption case. Confirming the arrest, Saini’s counsel Ramandeep Singh Sandhu said that bail had already been granted by the court in the case of FIR No. 13.
The court had asked Saini to appear before the vigilance to probe the matter, which is why he came to the Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali at 8.10 am, on August 18, 2021.
However, the vigilance authorities registered another FIR of fraud and arrested him on the basis of it. The Vigilance Bureau has not officially confirmed Saini’s arrest, nor has any concerned Vigilance official been available for comment.
Ex DGP Sumedh Saini Arrested in Corruption Cases
The incident took place in 2015 and Sumedh Saini was then the Punjab police chief. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has questioned him in the contempt case and the matter is still in court.
On August 2, FIR No. 13 was registered in which the High Court granted bail and asked him to appear for investigation. The lawyer said that Saini had come to appear for investigation and was arrested in a new case.
Ramandeep Sandhu said that Vigilance has not yet disclosed the details of the arrest. But it is clear that Saini has been arrested. Vigilance claimed that at first we were told to wait for a while, but after a while Vigilance Officer Varinderpal Singh Brar informed us about the arrest. However, the Vigilance Bureau has not officially confirmed Saini’s arrest.
Ex Punjab DGP Saini’s Court Hearing
According to Saini’s lawyer Ramandeep Singh Sandhu, he had bought a house after retiring from the police. The house is in Sector 20, Chandigarh. The deposit was made and the registry was to be done in 2 months.
In this case, it is alleged that the payments are wrong. However, the lawyer claimed that the payments were for the proceeds from the sale of the ancestral property. There was nothing wrong with that.
Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini was released on Thursday, 19 Aug, night by the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The High Court declared his arrest by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau illegal. Saini was presented in the High Court at 2 pm on Thursday and the court delivered its verdict at 2.15 pm 12 hours later.
The High Court also dismissed the Vigilance Bureau’s demand for Saini’s police remand from the Mohali court as unnecessary.
Investigation in Kotkapura Continues With Ex DGP Saini and Others
The High Court in its judgment said that while granting relief to Saini in the kotkapura police firing case on October 11, 2018, the High Court had said that if there was a need for arrest in any case other than this, the state vigilance chief, IGP and DGP had given one week’s notice.
In fact, a detainee corpus petition was filed in the High Court on Thursday, alleging that Sumedh Singh Saini was in the illegal custody of the Vigilance Bureau, and therefore release orders should be issued. The petition said that Saini had gone to join the probe as per the High Court order, but the Vigilance Bureau arrested him citing another FIR.
The petition was also referred to the bench hearing the first case and the two cases were heard together. The High Court then ordered the release of Sumedh Saini. The order came late at night, 11 pm, after which the former DGP was released.
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