The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed India’s Central Bureau of Investigation to open a criminal case into corruption allegations involving people linked to the Punjab chief minister’s office, moving the inquiry outside the control of state police.
The order came in a public-interest petition filed by advocate Nikhil Saraf after the Enforcement Directorate sent three letters to Punjab’s director general of police. The federal agency said material gathered in a money-laundering investigation pointed to possible payments connected with government transfers, land-use approvals, tenders and access to official information.
A division bench led by Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra ordered the CBI to register a case and file a status report within two months. The allegations concern Rajbir Singh Ghuman, an officer on special duty to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, and other individuals. They remain allegations; the High Court’s direction starts an investigation and is not a finding of guilt.
The petition argued that the Punjab Police had not taken meaningful action on the federal agency’s communications and that an investigation independent of the state government was necessary. The court’s decision accepts the need for an outside inquiry, but the evidence will still have to be tested through ordinary investigative and, if charges follow, criminal procedure.
Mann has rejected the accusations and described the use of central agencies against his government as politically motivated. That dispute will not be resolved by the transfer alone. The immediate legal consequence is institutional: the CBI, rather than Punjab Police, will decide what offences, if any, the available material supports.
The two-month reporting requirement gives the High Court continuing supervision over the investigation’s early stage. Any eventual prosecution would require a separate decision based on admissible evidence and would remain subject to challenge by the people named.
