CHANDIGARH/NEW DELHI: 2011-batch IPS and Patiala Police SSP Nanak Singh, who is facing the ire of the Indian Army, ex-servicemen and collective national outrage over the assault on a Colonel-rank officer by policemen last week, is also facing an ongoing case in Punjab and Haryana high court over the alleged harassment of a Chandigarh oncologist Dr Vikas Goyal.
The case was heard on Monday by Punjab and Haryana HC judge Justice Sandeep Mudgil who has reserved the date for urgent hearing on Wednesday.
The Chandigarh-based cancer specialist and a family, which owns 6-acre land a in Budhladha in Punjabโs Mansa district, has told the HC how Nanak Singh began harassing them since 2023 , during his tenure as Mansa SSP, over a 2006 real estate transaction where they are building a hospital.
โOur land was litigation free but all of a sudden in 2023 a complaint is received before the IPS Nanak Singh, who drags me and other co-owners like Parul Oberoi and when we relent, he orders a case of IPC 420 and 120 B over the incomplete registration of our land piece on February 2, 2024,โ said Dr Goyal.
โHe continues to harass us and we were forced by SSPโs team to arrive at a compromise for no reason on February 20 last year. We bought the land from one Sukhdev Singh who had secured this land in 2006. Now, this SSP went back to a case on transaction of Rs 58 lakh despite the fact Punjab and Haryana high court had settled this case,โ Dr Goyal added.
The FIR ordered by Singh in 2024 under the charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating accused Goyal and Oberoi and the second-hand owners Sukhdev for not clearing the payment of Rs 58 lakh in 2006.
However, there was no mention of this pending payment or any such transaction in the revenue records of the land when mutation and transfer was processed in 2023, including the order by SDM.
Despite questions sent to IPS Nanak Singh, he did not reply on why he pressed for fresh charges against Goyal and Oberoi into this case when a civil suit was being heard and a mutation order by SDM on March 12, 2024 categorically said that the possession and transfer by the Chandigarh family was clean.
Here is a screenshot of the questions sent by The New Indian to Nanak Singh.
He brazened these questions out.
โThere was no stay on the purchased land at the time of verification of the certificate. In this way, the petitioners (Goyal and Oberoi) are the bona fide purchasers of the deed property,โthe writ by Goyal states against IPS Nanak Singh in the HC.
โSale deed No. 1400 is a registered document, on the basis of the revenue officer of the registered document is bound to verify the transfer. Therefore, if the mutation/transferable agreement is a registered document, the mutation is approved in favour of the petitioner,โ the writ petition adds.
A senior Punjab government official confirmed that they have received multiple complaints against Nanak Singh over improprieties in the past.
The recent complaint involves the assault on Colonel Pushpinder Singh Bath where he and his son were assaulted in full public glare by several Patiala cops on the intervening night of March 13 and 14.
Col Bathโs wife Jaswinder Kaur too had accused Nanak Singh for protecting 12 police personnel till three days ago until Punjab government ordered suspension of cops.
A sit-in has been organised against Nanak Singh by several retired servicemen, family members of Bath and others across Delhi, Patiala, UP, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana with outcries of his suspension and transfer too.
Advocate for Goyal and Oberoi told The New Indian said that Nanak Singhโs โhigh-handedness is nothing newโ.
โThis fresh case by Nanak Singh is only a testimony how he harasses citizens and has been doing this for years. Though our case is separate but we have told the Punjab and Haryana HC how he falsely impleaded my clients in the cheating case to arrive at a compromise and pay them money. The HC is now hearing this first such case in India against an IPS. We have pleaded before HC to interfere and stop the misuse of process of law and protect us,โ said advocate Guninder Singh.
Senior DoPT and MHA officials confirmed that the ministries are assimilating complaints against Nanak Singh to seek clarity on his discharge of duties as an IPS officer in Punjab.