Ludhiana: The Vigilance Bureau has nominated four more persons, including a retired district food and supplies controller and suspended Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation district manager, in the ₹2,000 crore foodgrain transportation scam on Monday.
Those nominated in the FIR are retired district food and supplies controller (DFSC) Surinder Kumar Beri, Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation (PUNSUP) district manager Jagandeep Dhillon (now suspended) and two commission agents (arthiyas) Anil Jain and Mahavir Bansal.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP, vigilance) Ludhiana range Ravinder Pal Singh Sandhu said during the interrogation it was found that the accused were involved in irregularities related to tenders, transportation and storage of foodgrains and bogus billing. The accused are yet to be arrested.
One of the accused Krishan Lal Dhoti Wala, a commission agent, who was arrested on September 15, was produced before court on Monday. The court extended his police remand by another day. Dhoti Wala was the third accused to be arrested in the case after contractor Telu Ram and former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu.
Ludhiana range vigilance senior superintendent of police Ravinder Pal Singh Sandhu said during the probe it came out that Lal used to procure foodgrains from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at cheap rates and used to sell it at higher rates in Punjab. He was also allegedly involved in bogus billing.
LDP scheme scam: 4 accused sent to 14-day judicial remand
A local court sent four accused in the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) locally displaced persons’ (LDP) scheme scam to a 14-day judicial remand on Monday.
The four accused are Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) executive engineer Jasdev Singh, LIT junior engineer (JE) Inderjeet Singh and municipal corporation JE Mandeep Singh and one Kamaldeep Singh of Model Town Extension. They had been arrested on September 16.
The vigilance officials told the court that they are yet to recover documents regarding the allotment of residential plots to unauthorised persons under the LDP scheme. Some accused parties, including former LIT chairperson Raman Balasubramaniam, are yet to be arrested.
A case was registered under Sections 7, 7A, 8, 12 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 471 (using a forged document or record as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy)of the Indian Penal Code was registered against the accused on July 28.