Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini arrested in forgery case

Sumedh Singh Saini’s lawyer APS Deol has termed the arrest illegal.

Punjab’s Vigilance Bureau yesterday arrested former state DGP Sumedh Singh Saini when he was on his way to join investigation in connection with one of the cases registered against him. Saini has been accused of disproportionate assets as well as irregularities in the recruitment of constables in Punjab Police. Recently, a fresh FIR was registered against him in connection with the irregularities in recruitment.

According to a report in The Indian Express, quoting a senior Punjab Police official, Saini was arrested in a forgery case involving a Chandigarh house that he had purchased using forged documents. Saini had gone to the Vigilance Bureau headquarters in Mohali at around 8 pm to join the investigation of a corruption case. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had on August 12 granted him interim anticipatory bail and asked him to join the investigation within a week. The court had granted him bail saying that Saini enjoys Z+ category security and there is no chance of him absconding.

Former DGP’s lawyer APS Deol has termed the arrest as illegal. According to a High Court order, Deol said, Saini was to be given seven days’ notice before he could be arrested in any matter relating to any incident that happened during his service career.

Interestingly, earlier this week, Saini withdrew his plea from the High Court seeking a direction to the Punjab Police not to arrest him for any other offence.

He was a 1982 batch IPS officer. Saini was appointed Director General of Police (DGP) in 2012 and was removed in 2015 following protests over a series of sacrilege incidents in the state. He retired from service in 2018.

According to PTI, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau had registered a case against Saini and six others on August 2 under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC. The police had also alleged that Saini had acquired a house in Chandigarh by using forged documents in a fraudulent deal. . In May 2020, Saini was also booked in the 1991 missing case of Balwant Singh Multani, who was then a junior engineer in the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation. The police later added a charge of murder under section 302 of the IPC to the FIR in the case of two former Chandigarh Police personnel who were co-accused, who were co-accused, disappearing after becoming government witnesses.