The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday granted interim anticipatory bail to former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Badal in a case involving alleged irregularities in a property purchase in Bathinda district. Justice Vikas Bahl presided over the bench, and while a detailed order was yet to be released on the high court’s website, the interim bail was granted.
Manpreet Badal, through his legal representation by senior advocate R.S. Cheema, along with advocates Arshdeep Cheema and Dilraj Singh Bhinder, contended in the petition that “the present FIR is one of the links in the chain that the present AAP government in Punjab is trying to fasten around all the people, be it political leaders, people closely associated with them, or a common man who, in some way, are/were connected or close to the previous government. The powerful ruling clique in Punjab has placed victimization, persecution, and public humiliation of selected targets at the top of its agenda.”
The petition further alleges that “the petitioner (Manpreet Singh Badal) is being targeted and entangled in this inquiry/investigation due to political intervention by the chief minister of Punjab. The CM has publicly declared his intention to implicate the petitioner in a criminal case. The CM made a press statement that an FIR against the petitioner had already been registered, and he would be arrested soon – even before the said FIR was actually registered… The fact that the CM claimed on 31.07.2023 that the FIR had already been registered clearly suggests that the orders to register an FIR were issued after conducting a superficial inquiry, forming the basis of the FIR registration.”
Manpreet Badal was booked in FIR No. 21 dated September 24, 2023, under Section 13(1) A read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended Act of 2018), along with Sections 420, 409, 467, 468, 471, and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, as well as Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. This case was registered at the Vigilance Bureau police station in Bathinda.