IEP Chandigarh May 2
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) during its ongoing campaign against corruption in the state, on Tuesday exposed a big scam worth crores of rupees by arresting seven accused including a revenue official for receiving huge compensations during acquisition of land on forged documents in Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in connivance with officials of state horticultural and revenue department from 2016 to 2020. Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the state VB said in this regard, FIR no. 16 dated 02/05/23 under sections 409, 420, 465, 466, 468, 471, 120-B of IPC and section 13(1) (a), 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered at VB Police Station, Flying Squad -1, Punjab at Mohali. In this case main accused namely Bhupinder Singh resident of Bakarpur, Mohali district along with Mukesh Jindal, Shaman Jindal wife tMukesh Jindal, Praveen Lata wife of Chanchal Kumar Jindal, both residents of Model Town Bathinda, Vishal Bhandari resident of Sector 40-D, Chandigarh, Sukhdev Singh resident of Bakarpur, Binder Singh resident of Sector 79 , Mohali and Bachitar Singh Patwari, revenue Halka Bakarpur (now Kanungo) SAS Nagar have been arrested. He informed that apart from this, officials of horticultural department namely Jaspreet Singh, Vaishali, Dinesh Kumar, Rashmi Arora, Anil Arora, Vishal Bhandari etc. are yet to be arrested soon and more revelations may be made in this case. The spokesperson further added that during the investigation of a complaint, the VB has found that in the year 2016, the GMADA has published notices in S.A.S. Nagar for acquisition of land pertaining to various villages and issued notifications under Section 4 in 2017 and under Section 19 in 2020. Meanwhile, Bhupinder Singh, a resident of Bakarpur, a property dealer, in connivance with officials/employees of GAMADA, Revenue and Horticulture department, along with his other colleagues namely Anil Jindal, Mukesh Jindal, Vikas Bhandari etc. started planting guava orchards on the agricultural land by getting land on general power of attorneys, he added. He informed that the above said accused people prepared a fake Girdavari register in the year 2019 in collusion with the Halka Patwari Bachitar Singh in which they obtained compensation worth crores of rupees illegally by showing that they owned guava orchards on their land since 2016. He further added that during the thorough probe it was found that the main accused in this case, Bhupinder Singh, has taken compensation of around Rs 24 crore for guava plantations for himself and his family members. Similarly, Mukesh Jindal, a resident of Bathinda, has defrauded the government by taking compensation of about Rs. 20 crores. Apart from this, in this case, many other persons have also taken compensation of crores of rupees from the government illegally by showing guava orchards in their land. In this way, the VB has exposed a big scam of crores of rupees and the remaining accused would be arrested soon. In this case further investigation was under progress, he added.
