Chandigarh May 3 (IANS) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has exposed a scam by arresting seven people, including a revenue official, on charges of receiving compensations during acquisition of land on forged documents in Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) from 2016 to 2020.
A spokesperson for the Vigilance Bureau said the main accused has been identified as Bhupinder Singh, Mukesh Jindal, Shaman Jindal, Mukesh Jindal, Praveen Lata, Vishal Bhandari, Sukhdev Singh, Binder Singh and Bachitar Singh.
He said officials of the Horticultural Department, namely Jaspreet Singh, Vaishali, Dinesh Kumar, Rashmi Arora, Anil Arora and Vishal Bhandari are yet to be arrested.
The spokesperson said during the investigation of a complaint, the Vigilance Bureau found that in 2016 the GMADA published notices in SAS Nagar for acquisition of land pertaining to various villages and issued notifications under Section 4 in 2017 and under Section 19 in 2020.
Property dealer Bhupinder Singh, in connivance with officials and employees of GMADA, the Revenue and Horticulture Departments, along with his colleagues Anil Jindal, Mukesh Jindal and Vikas Bhandari started planting guava orchards on the agricultural land by getting land on general power of attorneys.
The spokesperson said during the probe it was found that the main accused, Bhupinder Singh, has taken compensation of around Rs 24 crore for guava plantations for himself and his family members.
Similarly, Mukesh Jindal has defrauded the government by taking compensation of about Rs 20 crore.
Many other persons have also taken compensation from the government illegally by showing guava orchards in their land.
The Vigilance Bureau said the other accused would be arrested soon.
The CBI had registered a case on April 13, 2016 on the request of Chandigarh Administration and had taken over the investigation of the FIR earlier registered at Police Station, Sector-26, Chandigarh.
Bishnoi, who was brought from New Delhi after procuring the transit remand from Patiala House court, was produced in a Mansa court in Punjab at around 4 a.m. amid high-level security after his medical check-up.
The police have also recovered an illegal weapon and live cartridge from the criminal. The accused has been identified as Aakash, a native of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.
The Punjab Police informed Delhi Police that the location of one of the phone numbers was traced to Delhi, and that the accused were changing their locations frequently. Acting on the tip-off, Delhi Police followed the leads obtained through technical surveillance and digital footprints.
SSP Mohali, Vivek Sheel Soni said, the two accused identified as Gagandeep Singh alias Gaagi and Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi are residents of Dabbwali in Sirsa district of Haryana.
