Friends, I came to read of Sumedh Singh Saini from a HT Article (Saini, Judiciary's bugbear) dated 06/06/2009. The article by Ramesh Vinayak started by saying that-"In Punjab's bureaucratic and public spheres, Sumedh Singh Saini, evokes strong-and often extreme-reactions." It explains the reasons for such diametrically opposition reactions on Sumedh Saini. He seems to have a long list of admirers and supporters who hail him as a gutsy police officer who once fought against terrorism and is now fighting the core issue of corruption. At the same time, there are an equally long number of detractors and critics to whom he is " cold-blooded, schemer and quirky". But the point on which even his worst critic seems to agree is as regards his "credentials as an upright officer." To him are given the credit for "his audacious investigations" into the Punjab Public Service Commission Recruitment scam and Forest Hill resort Hill Scam. The PPPS Scam (also popularly known as the Ravi Sidhu case), which had hit national headlines, was unearthed by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau in March 2002 and resulted in a number of PCS officers, including judicial officers, selected by the commission being thrown out of their jobs. The jobs-for-cash scam came to light on March 25, 2002 when PPSC Chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu was caught red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from a PCS nominee. The most striking image associated with the scam was the sight of crores of rupees that tumbled out of Sidhu's bank lockers after they were opened by the Bureau. Vigilance teams had recovered Rs 9.57 crore in cash, Rs 8.99 crore in bank accounts, shares and debentures, properties worth crores, all supposedly amassed through corruption by this former journalist and his close relatives. In the course of its investigation names of even a few High Court Judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court had surfaced for having taken favours of jobs for their relatives and acquaintances from Ravi Sidhu , in which the then Chief Justice J Arun B Saharya had even launched an in-house probe, resulting in various actions against some of the Judges. Similarly, in the Forest Hills case, which was regarding a resort located at Karoran village in the Ropar district where senior IFS officers and senior IAS officers of Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA), supposedly repeatedly ignored the written objections on the files, sent by the juniors with regard to the serious violations and a Rs 100 crore Forest Hill Golf Resort and Country Club was allegedly constructed on forest land on the north-western outskirts of Chandigarh in complete violation of all norms. While this case later got handed over to the CBI in which various raids were conducted and criminal liabilities fixed, the initial ground-work was done by Sumedh Singh Saini which was entrusted to him by the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Sumedh Saini is of the Punjab cadre and belongs to the 1982 batch of the IPS. His elder brother is Dinesh Singh, an IAS officer of UP Cadre, who also belongs to the 1982 batch and who has the same imprint on the public minds as his younger brother. In fact, if one goes through what Ramesh Vinayak has written about Sumedh Saini, one seems to go exactly through the character analysis of his elder brother- the same zeal, urge, impatience, confidence and single-minded devotion. It is always good to know of people who have the capacity and ability to remain their own self- in good and bad times. It seems the two brothers have retained that capacity.
Amitabh Thakur SP (Intelligence), Faizabad # 94155-34526
