New Delhi, July 04: The Punjab Vigilance Bureau today refuted in the Delhi High Court the allegations levelled by certain employees of Wimpy International Ltd that they were illegally picked up from the capital last month without informing the local police authorities. In their reply to the two petitions filed by wimpy and its employees, vigilance officials asserted the bureau had informed the inter-state coordination cell of Crime Branch, Chanakyapuri here about the arrests.
It was only after informing the inter-state coordination cell that the accused were taken to Punjab where they were produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of their arrest, the Punjab government said in its reply. The vacation bench of Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice R S Sodhi transferred the matter to another bench as one of the accused - Narottam Singh Dhillon was known to Justice Sodhi.
The case would now come up for hearing before a regular bench on July 9. The court also asked the Delhi government to file its reply by the next date. Earlier, the court had issued notices to Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, state home secretary, Addl. DG A P Pandey, Superintendent of Police Surinder Singh, DIGs Siddharth Chattopadyaya, K K Uppal and K J S Pannu (all vigilance officials), Delhi govt., DCP south and ACP Greater Kailash seeking explanation as to how Wimpy employees were taken to Punjab from the jurisdiction of the court.
Dhillon and Wimpy employees - Yash Paul Dhawan, R K Gupta, Sanjeev Kulshreshtha, Harjinder Singh and Devinder Singh - were arrested in connection with a corruption case against Hardeep Singh, the then PA to former Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal. Bureau Report