Janjua's appointment: HC tells Punjab to submit record in 2 weeks; AG terms it transfer not promotion
Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court, while hearing a petition challenging the appointment of Vijay Kumar Janjua as the Punjab Chief Secretary, on Monday asked the Punjab Government to respond within two weeks.
The Punjab Government has been asked to submit all documents with regard to the case. During the hearing in the High Court on Monday, new Advocate General Vinod Ghai appeared on behalf of the Punjab Government.
AG Ghai maintained that Vijay Kumar Janjua was not promoted, but transferred, following which the High Court first asked to give the record of the entire case related to him.
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Notably, the former Punjab government had registered a case against Janjua in 2009 over corruption charges, without centre’s approval, which is mandatory to move a case against any IAS rank officer.
Petitioner Tulsi Ram has filed a petition on the basis of why a ‘tainted’ officer has been appointed as the Chief Secretary of Punjab. Janjua was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau in 2009 when he had a stint in the industries department and remained in jail for around 2 months before being bailed out pending trial. A sum of Rs 2 lakh was recovered by the officials from his office drawer.
Janjua as per vigilance records had forced a Ludhiana-based industrialist Tulsi Ram Mishra to pay him a bribe of Rs 5 lakh, of which Rs 2 lakh was the first tranche, in order to get formers proposal for allotment of a piece of land adjoining his boiler factory, accepted.
After the vigilance bureau completed the investigations and presented the 'challan', the trial court sought prosecution sanction, which is a prerequisite to be given by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of the government of India since Janjua belongs to the all-India civil services.
However, the DoPT to date neither gave prosecution sanction nor refused it, leading to stalling of the trial. A senior bureaucrat explained that it implied the matter was still under consideration by the government of India.
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