By IANS
Ludhiana : Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh was Thursday given interim bail in the multi-million Ludhiana city centre corruption case.
District court in this industrial city also gave the interim relief till Jan 22 to Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh, son-in-law Raminder Singh and his former local bodies minister Jagjit Singh and a few others in the graft case.
Punjab police had made elaborate security arrangement inside the court complex and especially around the courtroom in view of presence of the VIPs.
Amarinder Singh appeared personally before sessions judge G.K. Rai, standing in the court for nearly 45 minutes and acknowledging his presence when the judge called his name.
Rai had summoned 35 accused named by the Punjab vigilance bureau in the scam. The 36th accused, former Ludhiana improvement trust chairman P.S. Sibia, has already been declared an absconder.
Eighteen of those summoned appeared before the court Thursday, when the hearing lasted nearly five hours. The next hearing of the case would be Jan 22.
Amarinder and others had been named as beneficiaries of graft money by the vigilance probe in the multi-million city centre – touted to be the largest in Asia when completed – scam.
The project was allotted by the previous Amarinder Singh led government to Delhi-based Today’s Homes And Infrastructure in 2005 in violation of laid down procedures and rules.
“We all know that the vigilance has fabricated the case against us at the behest of Badals. We will fight it,” Amarinder Singh said while referring to Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and his on Sukhbir Singh.
“It is good that the case is now out of the hands of the vigilance and the matter is before the court,” he said.