Following the Punjab and Haryana High Court calling the arrest of Sumedh Saini illegal, the Punjab Jails and Cooperation minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has urged Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to immediately remove advocate general Atul Nanda, home secretary Anurag Agarwal, and Vigilance Bureau top director BK Uppal.
In his tweet over top officials’ fiasco in the Sumedh Siani case, the cabinet minister called them ‘professionally incompetent’.
Randhawa took to Twitter and said, “In view of the fiasco in Sumedh Singh Saini case, I urge chief Minister @capt_amarinder to immediately remove Advocate General, Home Secretary and Chief Director Vigilance, for their professional incompetence.”
Ex-DGP Saini's case has political colour to it as he claims that the Congress government is out to get him because he lodged cases against Amarinder Singh and his aide BS Chahal as vigilance chief during the previous SAD-BJP regime.
Notably, Randhawa has already criticised Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and his close aides for failing to fulfil the election promises, particularly the failure to act on the 2015 sacrilege and police firing cases.
Besides, this is not the first time that Randhawa has requested the removal of Attorney General Atul Nanda. He has earlier also raised the demand of sacking Atul Nanda and raised questions on his “competency” as AG.
He had earlier pointed out that state government would face an unprecedented embarrassment someday going by the manner in which AG office is functioning under Nanda. He said the state government in past many years has lost important cases in the court of law due to his incompetency, while Saini’s release is another nail in the coffin.
Meanwhile, Saini was arrested by the state's Vigilance Bureau in connection with a case filed in September 2020 under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery for cheating), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
His arrest, the Punjab and Haryana High Court decided, violated previous rulings and an anticipatory bail order. Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi's court ordered that Saini be released immediately.
Counsel APS Deol said Saini's arrest in the September 2020 case was “flagrant misuse of power by police and misuse of power by the vigilance.”