Rs 40 crore scam by Punjab Congress politician’s kin kept buried for 10 years

Chandigarh: A fraud of about Rs 40 crore committed with the Punjab Finance Corporation (PFC) by a Congress politician’s family has remained buried for 10 years after being discovered in 2013.

It was after indianarrative.com started making enquiries with the Ferozepur police and the PFC that Chief Secretary V.K. Janjua ordered a time-bound inquiry into the matter. The police and the PFC officers concerned would need to explain their conduct, the Chief Secretary said.

In September 1995, M/s Par Boiled Rice Mills Pvt Ltd, located in village Mishriwala of Ferozepur district, took a loan of Rs 1.12 crore from government-owned PFC to set up a rice sheller. The company had 3 founding directors, Harjinder Singh alias Bittu Sangha, a brother-in-law of ex-MLA Parminder Singh Pinki, Uma Shanker and Joginder Pal.

The company defaulted in payment of instalments, and it was in 2013 that PFC conducted a site inspection only to realise that no rice sheller functioned at the designated place and no machinery existed. It was two years later, an FIR number 139, was registered at Ghul Khurd police station on the complaint of deputy manager (legal) Harjit Singh. The police made no further progress in the case.

In 2017 with the coming into power of the Captain Amarinder Singh government, the directors of the company, allegedly backed by the then sitting MLA Parminder Singh Pinki, moved an application before the SSP seeking cancellation of the FIR.

Founding director Uma Shanker argued that he resigned from the company in 1997, much before the disappearance of the plant machinery. Hence, the loan liability and the responsibility for the machinery lie with the new directors.

The then IG Ferozepur range Mukhwinder Singh Chhina, on the advice of District Attorney (legal) Avtar Singh, did not agree with the contention of the accused applicant. One of the main conditions for getting the loan was that “…the company shall not remove or add or transfer any director and shall not part with the plant or its machinery or the assets mortgaged without the previous written permission of the Corporation.”

IG Chhina was transferred soon thereafter, and B. Chander Shekhar IPS, considered close to MLA Pinki, took over as the new IG Ferozepur range.

During the course of the inquiry under IG Chhina, ASI Gurmail Singh reported that till 2014, M/s Par Boiled Rice Sheller, Pvt Ltd, owed Rs 14.64 crore to PFC. As per an estimate, the dues today stand escalated to Rs 40 crore.

Another application was moved by the accused director Harjinder Singh alias Bittu Sangha demanding cancellation of the FIR on the same grounds as the previous one by Uma Shanker. The new IG directed the then SP (investigation) Ferozepur Ajmer Singh Batth to investigate. The SP while giving a clean chit to the three accused founding directors of the company recommended that the names of 6 new directors, Ashok Kumar, Sham Lal, Surinder Lal, Parkash Ghakhar, Gurdip Chand and Kewal Krishan, be added to the FIR.

The present DA (legal) Amritpal Singh, agreed with SP Batth and IG Chander Shekar and approved the cancellation letter – after considering all legal parameters – for presenting before the court. But the court to date has not passed any orders to that effect.

Sources reveal that for 10 years since the fraud came to the knowledge of the PFC in 2013, the PFC made no efforts to pursue the matter with the police and also did not attempt to recover public money by auctioning the mortgaged assets of the founding directors of the company.

One of the accused founding directors Bittu Sangha when contacted said that the FIR was cancelled some five years ago and all three directors were declared innocent by the police. The registrar of companies (ROC), too, accepted the addition of new directors and the loan liability automatically shifted to them.

Ferozepur SSP Bhupinder Singh told indianarative.com that the matter would be reinvestigated and the guilty would be prosecuted.