The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) on Thursday registered a criminal case against former minister Sunder Sham Arora, Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Neelima and ten government officers for transferring an industrial plot to a realtor company and allowing it to establish township by cutting plots.
In this case three owners of a realtor firm, Gulmohar Township Private Limited have also been booked.In this case the VB has arrested seven officials of Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC) which included estate officer Ankur Chaudhary, general manager (personnel) Davinderpal Singh and chief general manager (planning) JS Bhatia.
Disclosing this on Thursday, an official spokesperson said aiming to promote the industry, the Punjab government had allotted 25 acres of land to Anand Lamps Limited through a sale deed in the year 1987 which was later transferred to a firm named Signify Innovations.
This plot was then sold to Gulmohar Township through a sale deed by the Signify Innovations after procuring no objection certificate from the PSIDC. On 17 March 2021, then industry and commerce minister Arora forwarded a letter to then MD PSIDC received from Gulmohar Township for further bifurcation of plots.
The then managing director (MD) PSIDC, Neelima constituted a departmental committee to examine the proposal of this realtor firm. The committee headed by SP singh had approved the proposal of above said realtor firm to bifurcate plots from 12 plots to 125 plots without taking notice of proposal report, project report, articles of association and memorandum of association in this regard.
In addition to this, the said committee had recommended the proposal of Gulmohar Township without consulting Punjab Pollution Control Board, Municipal Corporation, Electricity Board, Forest Department, State Fire Brigade etc.
During investigation by the Forensic Science Laboratory, it has also been found that two pages of the noting on file didn’t match with the rest of the pages attached in file. It was found that the above said committee members have attached fake documents and didn’t not scrutinised the said proposal thoroughly.
The spokesperson further added that according to the deed of 1987, this plot was to be used for industrial purposes only and the said Gulmohar Township has no such background.
He further added that according to the rules of the PSIDC, the fee for plots was to be charged at the rate of Rs 20 per yard and Rs Three per year from the year 1987, which was a total fee of Rs 1,51,25,000 for a total of 1,21,000 square yards.
“It was astonishing that the accused firm had already attached a pay order of Rs 27,83,000 with the application while no one from the PSIDC had demanded it. Due to which the Punjab government has incurred a financial loss of Rs 1,23,42,000,” the spokesperson said.
He said during the probe it was found that if this plot was to be sold as per the instructions of the state government, the government would have got an income of Rs 600 Crore to Rs 700 Crore. At the time of sale of 125 plots by Gulmohar Township, no proposal report, project report, articles of association and memorandum of association were demanded from any buyer and sold all the plots illegally.
He said by doing this, the above committee members including Neelima, then MD and former minister Arora colluded with each other and misused their official positions to give unfair advantage to the directors of Gulmohar Township Company Jagdeep Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Rakesh Kumar Sharma.
The two-term Congress MLA, Arora who switched to the BJP in June this year, is behind bars following his arrest by the Vigilance Bureau in October for allegedly offering Rs 50-lakh bribe to an officer of the bureau in return for exoneration in a corruption case.