Continuing its action against alleged corruption during the previous Congress regime,  the Punjab Vigilance Bureau has arrested former minister and state’s Congress working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu in the food grains transportation scam in which tenders were allocated allegedly on registration numbers of scooters and cars listed as trucks to claim transport subsidies.

Former forest ministers in the Congress government,  Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and Sangat Singh Gilzian have already been booked in alleged corruption cases. A minister in the Captain Amarinder Singh government, Dharamsot  – who is in judicial custody after his arrest on 8 June –  is accused of taking bribes to permit felling of over 25,000 trees,Gilzian allegedly took bribes on the installation of tree guards after becoming the forest minister in Charanjit Singh Channi government.

A two-time former legislator from Ludhiana West, Ashu was food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister  in the previous Congress government, first under Captain Amarinder Singh and later under Charanjit Singh Channi. He lost his seat in the 2022 Punjab Assembly election.

A spokesperson of the Vigilance Bureau (VB)  on Monday said the Bureau, after verification of a complaint made by complainant Gurprit Singh, has already registered a first information report (FIR) under Preventions of Corruption Act at Ludhiana in which besides owners of Gurdas Ram & Company, contractors Telu Ram, Jagroop Singh and Sandeep Bhatia  has been booked.

The contractor Telu Ram has already been arrested in this and he is on police remand. “During investigation by the VB, accused Telu Ram has submitted that he met Bharat Bhushan Ashu through his personal assistant Meenu Malhotra for getting tenders for the season 2020-21 who further told him to meet Rakesh Kumar Singla, deputy director of food and civil supplies. Singla was chairman of departmental chief vigilance committee for tenders and was acting on the directions of former minister,” he said.

The accused Telu Ram has informed the VB that when he met RK Singla, he has demanded Rs 30 Lakh on behalf of Ashu and gave bribes of Rs 20 lakh to RK Singla, Rs Six lakh to Menu Malhotra and other officers.

The spokesperson added that on the basis of revelations as well as the material evidence, Ashu has been nominated as an accused in this case. During Investigation it has come on record that Telu Ram has purchased about 20 acres of land and accused Meenu Malhotra, who is at large, has also made a number of properties and records are being collected in this regard.

He informed that the record with regard to posting of accused Rakesh Kumar Singla is also being collected besides properties made by him would be probed.

Revealing the modus operandi of this scam, the spokesperson informed that the tenders were invited cluster wise in which ‘A’ group of mandis and work of all procurement agencies was allotted for the cluster and name of leading mandis in particular area was used as cluster name. In Ludhiana district, Telu Ram has four clusters (Jodhan, Mullanpur, Raikot and Payal) which contains 34 grain markets. Apart from this, Telu Ram was also having clusters in district Ferozepur at Talwandi Bhai and district Ropar local.

During investigations it has come to light that main accused Telu Ram had received about Rs 25 Crore for the said work. In order to get tenders the lists of vehicles submitted by accused were containing registration numbers of cars, scooters, motorcycles etc but the same transportation vehicles were required to be verified

After verification, technical bid was required to be rejected by district tender committee but they in connivance with each other allotted the tenders.

The spokesperson said even in the gate passes numbers of scooters, cars etc were mentioned but the above mentioned officers made payments to the accused contractors in respect of material quoted in these gate passes thereby matter regarding misappropriation also comes to light.