DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Seven senior officers of Punjab Small Industries & Export Corporation were on Thursday arrested by the State Vigilance Bureau (VB) in connection with the PSIEC industrial plots scam. The State Vigilance has booked former Industries minister Sunder Sham Arora (who is already in jail on corruption charges), senior IAS officer and the then PSIEC MD Neelima along with 12 others on charges of corruption, forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy. All the seven arrested accused, including J S Bhatia, Chief General Manager, Ashima Agarwal, Assistant Town Planner, Devinderpal Singh, General Manager, Parminder Singh, XEN-II (now Chief Engineer), Ankur Choudhary, the then Estate Officer and now Deputy General Manager, Sandeep Singh, SDE (Mohali) and Rajat Kumar, DA, would be produced before a Mohali court on Friday. These officers were allegedly part of the approval process that allowed transferring/bifurcation of an industrial plot to a realtor company and allowing it establish township by cutting plots. In this case, three owners/partners of a realtor firm, Gulmohar Township Private Limited have also been named as accused and the Vigilance is likely to question them soon. The VB has registered the case under sections 13 (1) (a), 13 (2) of Prevention of Corruption Act and 409, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120-B of the IPC at VB police station Mohali, Punjab. The case was registered by the State Vigilance after preliminary inquiry into the scam and after receiving reports from the Forensic Science Laboratory, Mohali that some of the pages of the file approved by the PSIEC MD had been tampered with. Meanwhile, the father of Ankur Choudhary, S C Choudhary who is a former Chief Secretary of Haryana, claimed that in violation of rules, the State Vigilance has registered the FIR without obtaining the prior approval of the Administrative Department, i.e. Punjab Industries and Commerce Department. He said he will soon be moving the court challenging the vigilance action against his son. A VB spokesman informed that aiming to promoting the industry, the Punjab Government had allotted 25 acres of land to Punjab Anand Laps Limited (Philips) through a sale deed in the year 1987 which was later transferred to a firm named Signify Innovations. This was then sold to Gulmohar Township through a sale deed by the Signify Innovations after procuring No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC). In March, 2021, the then Industries minister Sundar Sham Arora forwarded a letter to then MD PSIDC received from Gulmohar Township for further bifurcation of plots. He said that the MD PSIDC constituted a departmental committee to examine the proposal of this realtor firm that included SP Singh, Executive Director, Ankur Choudhary, Estate Officer, Bhai Sukhdeep Singh Sidhu, Davinderpal Singh GM Personnel, Tejveer Singh DTP, (deceased), JS Bhatia Chief General Manager (Planning), Ashima Aggarwal ATP (Planning), Parminder Singh, Executive Engineer, Rajat DA and Sandeep Singh SDE. The Committee headed by SP Singh 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, the spokesman said. During investigation by the FSL, Mohali, it was found that two pages of the noting on file didn't match with the rest of the pages attached in the file. It was found that the above said committee members had allegedly attached fake documents and didn't not scrutinised the said application/proposal thoroughly. According to the deed of 1987, the spokesman said, 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 PSIDC rules, the fee for plots was to be charged at the rate of Rs.20 per yard and Rs.3 per year from the year 1987, which was a total fee of Rs.1.51 crore for a total of 1,21,000 square yards. It was shocking that the accused firm had already attached pay order with the application while no one from the PSIDC had demanded it. Due to this, he said, the Punjab Government has incurred a financial loss of Rs. 1.23 crore. During the probe, it was found that if this plot was to be sold as per the instructions/rules of the state government, the government would have got an income of Rs 600 to 700 crores. At the time of sale of 125 plots by Gulmohar Township, no proposal report, project report, articles of association and memorandum of association was demanded from any buyer party and sold all the plots illegally. (editor@dailyworld.in)