Mohali, November 3 — The Punjab Vigilance Bureau’s bid to secure custody of suspended DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar hit a legal roadblock on Monday after a Mohali court dismissed its production warrant plea, calling it “infructuous.”
Bhullar, already in judicial custody at Model Jail, Chandigarh, was formally arrested by the VB in a disproportionate assets case on October 31. However, the CBI currently has his police custody till November 6, as per its submission to the court.
The court noted that two parallel investigations — one by the Vigilance Bureau and another by the CBI — were seeking custodial questioning of the same accused. “This could be resolved by allowing the Vigilance Bureau to investigate the accused once the CBI remand is over,” the order read, adding that the present application was “dismissed as infructuous as circumstances have changed.”
The CBI, in its reply, accused the VB of filing a “parallel FIR on identical allegations” to undermine its ongoing probe. It also said the VB had contradicted itself by arresting Bhullar on October 31 without permission and then seeking his production warrant a day later.
The court, however, gave the Vigilance Bureau liberty to move a fresh application once the CBI’s custody period ends.
