Punjab and Haryana High Court has slammed the AAP government of Punjab. The High Court has asked Bhagwant Mann’s government to provide information about the money spent on government advertisements. Bhagwant Mann government had told the High Court that it did not have the money to upgrade forensic labs. The High Court has also asked how many vehicles the government purchased for police officers amid this ‘fund shortage’.
The matter is related to the investigation of a CD
Punjab and Haryana High Court has made this comment in the case of investigation of a CCTV video from CD. Actually, Punjab Police had arrested a person named Vinay Kumar in a drug related case. Vinay’s lawyer had claimed that while the police has shown his arrest as September 16, 2023, he was actually caught from a friend’s house on the 14th. To prove this, he also gave the CCTV videos of the house in a CD to the court.
The High Court had given this CD for investigation. This CD was sent to Central Forensic Chandigarh. However, the High Court was quite angry when its investigation report did not come. The High Court expressed displeasure over the fact that the four forensic labs built within Punjab do not even have facilities like CD testing. Meanwhile, the Bhagwant Mann government tried to tell the court that it has given a lot of money to upgrade all the labs but in the meantime it also admitted that it does not yet have the facility to test CDs.
High Court reprimanded
The High Court has cases Bhagwant Mann had also asked the government why it was not upgrading the forensic labs of the state and how much more time it needed for this work. Regarding this, Ashwini Kalia, head of the forensic department of Punjab, had filed a reply with the Chief Secretary of the state on January 21, 2025.
In this he had given details of the action taken in the Forensic Department regarding the forensic equipment purchased for examining the videos. He had told that a meeting in this regard was held on January 9, 2025 and this process will be completed within 4 weeks. He had told that this video checking equipment would be purchased only for one lab.
Kalia had said that the Bhagwant Mann government does not have the money to upgrade the remaining three labs and no budget has been given for this. The High Court got angry about this. The High Court said that it did not expect such a response from the state government.
Hearing the case, Justice Moudgil said, “If the state government had shown willingness to equip itself with modern scrutiny/new technologies, the budget approval could have been given in 1-2 days or even a few hours. Especially in this digital age and AI era.
Also asked the account of expenditure on advertising
The Punjab and Haryana High Court, complaining of lack of funds, also asked Bhagwant Mann’s government as to how much it is spending on advertisements. The High Court asked the government to provide information about the money spent on advertising between April 2024 and January 2025 within a week.
The High Court said, “The state government, through its Chief Secretary, is prohibited from publishing advertisements about the work and achievements of the government in the current financial year i.e. from April 01, 2024 to January 20, 2025 and on vehicles purchased for police officers. It is ordered to furnish details of expenditure incurred.”
20 vehicles were given to ministers
While the Punjab government is citing lack of funds for the forensic lab necessary for crime control, it has asked the ministers to appoint 20 forensic labs in 2024 itself. vehicles Have given. 10 out of 15 ministers in Bhagwant Mann’s government were given 1-1 Innova and 1-1 Bolero in January 2024. This will go in his convoy. Their price is said to be around ₹4 crore.
The Punjab government had recently purchased more than 100 Toyota HiLux vehicles for the police also. The government had said that this is for the new force. The issue of buying expensive vehicles is not limited only to ministers and police. It was only in December 2024 that the news came that new Land Cruiser vehicles for Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. purchased Have to go.
Earlier in September 2023, the Punjab government had floated a tender for a 10-seat airplane. This tender was floated when the state government already has a helicopter. After protests it was shelved. The RTI activist who gave this information was also threatened by the police.
