Virbhadra turns heat on Dhumal, Vigilance files chargesheet in court

Virbhadra Singh

Twenty-four hours back when former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal was leading 28 BJP MLAs to Raj Bhawan to seek registration of case against Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s son Vikramaditya Singh in the BJP office violence case, state’s Vigilance agency was busy in filing a fresh chargesheet on him.

State Vigilance and anti –corruption Bureau officials confirmed that they have filed the challan against Dhumal, two senior retired IAS officers and a former IGP A N Sharma in the Shimla court under Prevention of Corruption Act and different sections of the IPC.

Last week,the state government had granted prosecution sanction against two IAS officers – Ravi Dhingra, a retired Chief Secretary and P C Kapoor, who also retired as Additional Chief Secretary thus clearing decks for their trial.

Both officers beside Dhumal were named in the chargesheet in the FIR registered against Sharma, a IPS officer last year.

Charge against Sharma was that he took voluntary retirement ahead of 2007 assembly polls apparently to contest elections on the BJP ticket. Denied ticket, he returned to the government allowing him to withdraw his request. Dhumal, who had become Chief Minister by then allowed his request. Two IAS officers had handled the file relating to his return to the cadre.

Additional DGP (Vigilance) Prithvi Raj said, “filing of challan was a legal requirement after state government had granted all its sanctions against former CM and two IAS officers.It’s now upto the court to proceed in the matter.”

Chief Minister chose perfect timing for the case when BJP was trying to pin him down in the assembly in connection to party office violence case and seeking action against his son Vikramaditya Singh, who is also youth congress president, and had led the supporters to protest outside the BJP office on January 29.

The BJP first created a ruckus in the assembly and later approached Governor Kalyan Singh to seek his intervention for action in the matter after Chief Minister had given a clean chit to Vikramaditya Singh. Chief Minister instead had blamed the BJP for engineering violence against peaceful protest led by his son.

Dhumal when contacted said, “Chief Minister is free to file as many cases he wants against his political opponents. I have not done any wrong and have faith in the judiciary .But , Virbhadra Singh too should remain prepared to face consequences for filing false cases and fabricating evidence.”

The FIR in the case was registered under section 420 and 120 – B IPC and Prevention of corruption Act.

Source:: Indian Express