HC admits plea by Tota Singh against sentence
Friday, 11/05/2012
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120511/punjab.htm#13
Two days after Punjab’s former agriculture minister Tota Singh moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging the trial court orders of convicting and sentencing him in a corruption case, Justice Ritu Bahri today admitted his appeal.
Justice Bahri also issued notice for May 17 on Tota Singh’s plea for grant of bail in the case.
Tota Singh has been awarded a year’s rigorous imprisonment by a Mohali court for misusing the official car of Punjab School Education Board. Tota Singh, in his appeal, argued he was given a private vehicle with unlimited fuel and there was no need for him to misuse the official car.
The former minister also submitted that the lower Court, in its judgment, had cast serious aspersions on the investigating agency. The court had, rather, held that the investigating agency had deliberately not collected evidence against Tota Singh.
He submitted the investigating agency was biased against him and he was implicated in the case. In its 75-page judgment, the Mohali court had also issued show-cause notices to three witnesses asking them to explain why perjury proceedings be not initiated against them for misleading the court. The three are drivers and the then officer on special duty to PSEB chairman.
