Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh ridiculed the demand of former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for probe into Congress “charge-sheet” by a sitting High Court Judge, saying that criminal charges are investigated by investigating agencies and not through judicial probe.
Reacting to the letter written by leader of opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal to the Governor in this regard, Singh said that the demand was irrelevant as judicial probe was called for in the matters where some fact-finding exercise was required, whereas offences of criminal nature were to be investigated as per the laid down procedure by police agencies.
Another Congress leader and Chairman of the State Pollution Control Board Kuldeep Singh Pathania ridiculed Dhumal and asked him to first disclose the number of cases the BJP Govt got investigated from any sitting Judge of the high court in his tenure.
He advised the BJP to wait for the results instead of making needless hue and cry as investigation had to take its own course with set principles of guidelines to be followed so that only those found guilty were brought to book. He said that it seemed that Dhumal had lost faith in the investigating agencies of the state due to retirement of certain top police officers.
He said that only in case of violation of public policies or rules, a probe by a sitting Judge was called for. There was no such hard law, which puts the onus of probing criminal charges on a sitting Judge.
