ATTORNEYS PROVED, Badal never served with any paper related to case against him in US Court

Chandigarh, February 24, 2013: Attorneys for Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal have presented eight witnesses and over 20 exhibits in the federal court in the State Wisconsin, USA to prove that Badal had never been served with any paper related to the case filed against him in August 2012, by an organisation called ‘Sikhs for Justice’.

Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s office informed that a lawsuit against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, had been filed by the organisation when they apparently knew that the Chief Minister would be present in the state. In order for the lawsuit to proceed, the organisation was required to “serve” the lawsuit papers on the Chief Minister; meaning that they must hand over the papers to the Chief Minister personally, informed the spokesperson.  

The organisation had claimed in court that a process server did just that on August 9 when he found the Badal at a local high school but during a court hearing in Federal Court in Wisconsin on Thursday (February 21, 2013), attorneys for Badal presented eight witnesses and over 20 exhibits to prove that the Chief Minister was not present at the local high school and was never been served with the papers. Among the witnesses to testify were the two agents of the Department of State Federal, who said that they had been assigned to provide a protection detail for the Chief Minister during his five-day stay in Wisconsin.  They swore under oath that they were in his presence and had him under tight security at all times, that the Chief Minister was nowhere near the local high school as the process server claimed, and that the Chief Minister was never served with the papers.  Other witnesses likewise testified that they were either part of the entourage with the Chief Minister, were assigned to conduct security for the Chief Minister, or were at locations visited by the Chief Minister that day, all of them informed the Court that Badal was not at the high school and was never served with such papers.  Another two witnesses were two individuals who were, in fact, at the high school that day, one of them was the local chief of police and other was an interpreter. In his statement, the chief of police confirmed that Badal had not been at the school that day and thus could not been served. Whereas the interpreter testified that someone mistakenly had served him with the papers rather than the Chief Minister.

During proceedings the Judge expressed strong skepticism of the plaintiffs’ claim of service, but agreed to give them 30 additional days to finish investigating this issue.  Thereafter, the parties have been ordered to submit written arguments, and the judge would then decide whether to allow the case to proceed, informed the spokesperson.