Plot allotment case: VB issues fresh summons to Manpreet Badal for October 31

Days after former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal skipped the vigilance bureau (VB) summons on medical grounds, the probe agency issued a fresh summons to appear on October 31 in the Bathinda plots allotment case.

Deputy superintendent of police (vigilance bureau) Kulwant Singh said that the VB has summoned Manpreet Badal to appear at the Bathinda office on October 31.

On October 16, the Punjab and Haryana high court granted interim bail to Manpreet Badal. Following this, the VB had summoned him to appear in Bathinda on October 23, but he failed to appear before the probe agency citing back pain for which he said he has been advised bed rest.

Manpreet, who is now with the Bharatiya Janata Party, 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 along with five other accused including Shergill and Kalia. Three accused Rajiv Kumar, Amandeep Singh and Vikas Arora have already been arrested by the VB.

The complaint was filed by former MLA Sarup Chand Singla, who had alleged irregularities in the purchase of a property in a prime location in Bathinda city. Singla, who too had switched from the Shiromani Akali Dal to the BJP, had filed a complaint before vigilance in September 2021 alleging that during his tenure as finance minister in the previous Congress regime, Manpreet had abused his position by converting commercial plots in the Model Town into residential plots for himself.