VB silent on judges indicted in inquiries

CHANDIGARH: While both the Saharya report and the Laxmanan report have held the three judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court guilty of misconduct in the multi-crore job-for-cash Ravi Sidhu case, the Vigilance Bureau in its investigation has remained mysteriously silent on it.
Intriguingly, in none of the three challans filed by the VB there is any hint of the three judges, Justice M L Singhal, Justice Amarbir Singh Gill and Justice Mehtab Singh Gill being under a cloud.
This in spite of the fact that they were allegedly named in the confessional statements of the two prime accused, Jagman Singh and Randhir Singh Dheera, for influencing some of the selections made by the Punjab Public Service Commission.
Chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh high court Justice A R Laxmanan, who had conducted an inquiry into the role of the three judges at the behest of Chief Justice of India G B Pattanaik, questioned both Dheera and Jagman in this connection.
Jagman had claimed to have transported a question paper and an answer script to the residence of Justice Singhal for his daughter Sapna Singhal who later got selected as dental demonstrator.
Dheera, on the other hand, had named the other two judges, Justice Mehtab Singh Gill and Justice Amarbir Singh Gill, for getting three persons selected to the list of the PCS officers.
While Justice Amarbir is said to have got his daughter, Amol Gill, selected to the PCS (judiciary), Justice Mehtab allegedly influenced the then PPSC chairman Ravi Inder Pal Singh Sidhu for the selection of Rupinderjit Singh and Sukhpreet Singh to the PCS.
The Laxmanan inquiry team, which comprised two more judges, also questioned Vigilance Bureau SP Jaskaran Singh and the then SP (intelligence) S S Mand.
Mand had earlier conducted the verification exercise to ascertain the claims made by Dheera and Jagman regarding the role of three judges to assist the then high court chief justice A B Saharya in his inquiry.
The Saharya inquiry report, indicting the three judges, was submitted to the then chief justice of India B N Kirpal. Chief director of the Vigilance Bureau A P Pandey said he had received no such inputs which could cast a shadow over the role of the three judges.
While officials admit that it would not be possible for the Vigilance Bureau to raise an accusing finger at the three judges because of the constitutional immunity that they enjoy, the investigating officials should have questioned Sapna Singhal, Amol Gill and two other selected candidates to ascertain whether Jagman and Dheera were stating facts.
Incidentally, it was at the role of judges in the Sidhu scam that the then team of the intelligence officials led by A P Bhatnagar, additional director general of police, and Pandey developed differences which later snowballed into a major controversy leading to unceremonious transfer of Bhatnagar and his teammates from the Intelligence wing.