The News Freedom
Chandigarh, October 16
Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted interim bail to BJP leader and former Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, in a corruption case. Manpreet through his counsels pleaded that he was being targeted and entangled in the investigation due to the Punjab Chief Minister’s political intervention.
Badal alleged in the petition that the CM had declared publically that he would fix him in a criminal case and made a press statement that an FIR against the petitioner had already been registered and he would be arrested soon. The statement was made much before the FIR’s registration, he further said in the petition.
Manpreet was booked by the Vigilance Bureau (VB) under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and Sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) 467 (forging a document that pretends to be a valuable security) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC on September 24. A court in Bathinda last month had issued an arrest warrant against Manpreet Badal, hours after a lookout circular was issued against him.
The Vigilance Bureau had launched an investigation against Badal in the case based on former MLA Sarup Chand Singla’s 2021 complaint alleging irregularities in the purchase of the property at a prime location in Bathinda. Singla had alleged that Badal, as a minister in the previous Congress dispensation, had abused his position to convert two commercial plots into a residential plot for himself.