Chandigarh:Former Punjab Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini was arrested by the state's Vigilance Bureau on Wednesday night, official sources said. It was not clear immediately in which case Saini was arrested.
The former state police chief arrived at the Vigilance Bureau headquarters in Mohali at around 8 pm to join investigation in a corruption case. The Punjab and Haryana High Court on August 12 had granted interim anticipatory bail to Saini in the corruption case. But, the court had asked him to join the investigation within a week. Senior advocate APS Deol who appeared for Saini in the high court dubbed his arrest as "illegal".
He said that according to a high court order issued last year, a seven-day notice had to be given to Saini before arresting him in any case pertaining to any incident during his entire service career. The former DGP on Tuesday had withdrawn from the high court a plea seeking directions to the Punjab Police not to arrest him in any other offence.
Also read: Punjab Police raid former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini's house
Saini, a 1982-batch IPS officer, was appointed the Director General of Police (DGP) in 2012. He was removed from the post in 2015 after protests erupted over a series of sacrilege incidents. He retired in 2018. According to sources, Saini parked his car outside the gate of the Vigilance Bureau office compound and said he had come to join the investigation in the case in which he had got interim anticipatory bail. He was apprehended by the investigating officer after he allegedly refused to get off the car, said sources.
Later, he was formally arrested in another case, said sources, without providing details of the case. The Punjab Vigilance Bureau had booked Saini and six others under the Prevention of Corruption Act and relevant sections of the IPC on August 2, alleging that the former DGP had acquired a house in Chandigarh in a "fraudulent deal" with "fake documents".
In May 2020, Saini was also booked in the case of disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani in 1991. Multani was then a junior engineer with the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation. The police later added murder charge under Section 302 of the IPC in the FIR in the disappearance case after two former Chandigarh Police personnel who were co-accused turned approver.
Also read: Ex-Punjab police chief gets anticipatory bail
PTI
