“My priority now is to serve the interests of the state. Can you expect a lawyer to challenge the same order which he himself secured? What can be more apt case of conflict of interest?” asked a senior lawyer.ĭeol, on the other hand, has claimed that he has sent back all files related to cases linked with Saini. “But now, if the government wants to challenge the blanket bail orders in the apex court, consent has to be given by Deol as AG. The court had also stayed all investigations against Saini.Īccording to some senior lawyers linked with the Bargari sacrilege cases, just before change in the guard in the Congress, the state government was preparing to challenge the high court orders related to FIRs 11 and 13 registered by the vigilance bureau in which Saini was granted blanket bail. Sidhu objected to Deol’s appointment as he had represented former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in the cases of 2015 police firing during protests against the Bargari sacrilege.ĭeol recently managed to get blanket bail for Saini from the Punjab and Haryana High Court stating that the ex-DGP will not be arrested in any case until elections in Punjab are over.

Senior leaders claimed that advocate Anmol Ratan Sidhu emerged as the unanimous choice for the job because of his old associations with the Congress but Channi prevailed and appointed Deol. But a section of lawyers told Channi that the Patwalia family had close links with the BJP as his elder brother Paramjit Singh Patwalia had served as additional solicitor general in the previous Narendra Modi government. For the advocate general’s post, Sidhu’s first choice was senior lawyer DS Patwalia, who had defended the former cricketer in a 1988 road rage case.Ī day after Channi took oath as CM, Sidhu even met Patwalia and promised him the state’s top law officer’s job, it is learnt. In both the appointments, chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi straightway ignored Sidhu’s choices. The appointments of Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota as the director general of police (DGP) and APS Deol as the advocate general (AG) were the final straw leading to the resignation of Navjot Singh Sidhu as the Punjab Congress president.

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