Chandigarh, Oct. 6 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday handed over an investigation into Enforcement Directorate (ED) letters detailing alleged top-level government corruption in Punjab to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Hours after the order, Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema said the state government will challenge the order in the Supreme Court. Cheema said CBI was already barred from entering Punjab without the consent of the state government. "Previous governments had imposed a restriction on CBI's entry int the state," he said, referring to the withdrawal of general consent to CBI by the previous government. A division bench of chief justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and justice Rohit Kapoor directed CBI to register a criminal case and submit a status report within two months. The order was passed on a PIL, filed on August 27 by advocate Nikhil Saraf, seeking an independent central probe after state authorities failed to act on three formal communications sent by ED to Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav between July 24 and August 12. The PIL alleged widespread corruption by senior state officials across multiple domains, including cash-for-transfers, policy manipulations and tender allocations. The court observed that the material sent by ED to Punjab police is voluminous and contains "incriminating material" and prima facie indicated involvement of high public officials in acts of corruption that at least required registering of FIR. "...we are of the considered view that a fair and transparent investigation is required to be carried out in the matter. We are also not impressed by the manner in which Punjab police has acted so far in the matter and therefore we deem it appropriate to entrust investigation of the present case to the Central Bureau of Investigation which will register an FIR in the matter and proceed with the investigation forthwith," the court said, asking Punjab police to render full cooperation. The court also took note of the petitioner's contention that attempt was made to silence him and demolition order of his Mohali property, soon after filing of the petition. The court noted that the Punjab government was asked to respond to the petition on August 27 but no reply was filed and only a note was shared even as proceedings continued between August 27 and September 14, when the matter was reserved for final orders. "A careful perusal of the ...note raises more questions than it answers," it added. The state government had opposed the PIL, mainly questioning its maintainability. However, the court rejected the argument observing that when the petitioner is able to show that he is raising a subject of vital public importance then a public interest litigation would clearly be maintainable before this court. According to ED's letters, a private individual named Nitin Gohal acted as an intermediary for Rajbir Singh Ghuman, the officer on special duty (OSD) to chief minister Bhagwant Mann. The ED alleged that Gohal, in collusion with Ghuman and other associates, including Bir Devinder and Jitin Gohal, operated an organised bribery network out of the chief minister's office....