Case with Navjot Singh Sidhu as witness adjourned to Nov 4

 

Earlier, the Punjab and Haryana high court had allowed former Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s plea to appear in the case through video conferencing

A local court on Friday adjourned to November 4 a criminal complaint case in which former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu is a witness.

Earlier, the Punjab and Haryana high court had allowed Sidhu’s plea to appear in the case through video conferencing. The Ludhiana district court had been directing Sidhu to be physically brought to the court for a hearing and had twice dismissed his plea to appear through video conferencing following which he moved the high court.

Earlier during the previous hearing, Sidhu had cited poor health condition and security apprehensions and sought that he be allowed to depose before the Ludhiana court through video conferencing. Sidhu had argued that it was difficult for him to appear in court as a witness because he had received many threats to his life and he had been provided with Z+ security.

The criminal complaint case has been filed against former food and civil supplies minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu by suspended DSP (Ludhiana Municipal Corporation) Balwinder Singh Sekhon.

Sekhon has alleged that Ashu called and threatened him while he was in the process of conducting an inquiry in the Grand Manor Homes CLU case.

Sidhu was the then local bodies minister and thus has been made a witness in the complaint case. Sidhu had pleaded that he cannot be summoned as a witness in the case.

On the other hand, the suspended DSP had pleaded in the court that Sidhu should be summoned as a witness in the case because it was during his (Sidhu’s) tenure as local bodies minister in 2019 that Ashu’s name had prominently figured in the probe report of CLU scam which was prepared by the officer and the case file was submitted in Sidhu’s office which is now reportedly “missing”. The DSP had alleged that during the inquiry, Ashu telephoned him and issued multiple threats and tried to derail the inquiry using his political influence.