complaint against Ashu during CLU probe: ‘I don’t remember’, says Navjot Singh Sidhu to queries posed by counsel

Ludhiana

Ludhiana Serving a term in the Patiala jail after being convicted in a 1988 road rage case in which one person died, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu appeared in a Ludhiana court through video conferencing after he was summoned as a witness in a criminal complaint case filed against former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu.

Responding to questions posed at him through video conferencing, Sidhu recorded his statements from the Patiala jail and said “I don’t remember” to most of the queries posed at him by the counsel for the complainant.

Sidhu was the local bodies minister at the time. Ashu has been accused of threatening the complainant, a suspended DSP with the Municipal Corporation, when the CLU scam broke in 2019. The complainant, DSP Balwinder Sekhon has alleged that Ashu called and threatened him while he was in the process of conducting an inquiry into the Grand Manor Homes CLU case.

Sidhu was produced around 12 pm on Friday and the hearing went on till 12.45 pm. It has been alleged that the original file of the inquiry in the CLU scam was sent to the then local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu through then principal secretary Venu Prasad on April 10, 2019, and this file was never received back. Later, on the directions of the principal secretary, the file was reconstructed by retrieving data from the computer and the said reconstructed file was not signed by anyone.

Sidhu was on Friday confronted with questions like whether an inquiry was marked to the complainant in the case, whether the inquiry report was submitted to his office by complainant and whether any order was passed by him while being the then local bodies minister for reconstruction of the lost file. Sidhu responded by saying that during his term as local bodies minister, he used to deal with several files pertaining to various matters daily and thus cannot comment on one particular file as this was long ago and he does not remember. Later, while talking to mediapersons, complainant Balwinder Sekhon said Sidhu’s response to most of the queries exhibited “sheer arrogance”. “He was acting as if the court and we are his servants. It appeared VIP treatment is being given to him in the jail,” Sekhon alleged. The next hearing of the case is on November 14.