Two food and civil supplies controllers held in tender scam in Punjab
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 22 Nov, 2022 11:38 AM
Chandigarh, Nov 22 (IANS) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) on Tuesday arrested two district food and civil supplies controllers (DFSCs) involved in the infamous tender scam in grain markets in Ludhiana district, involving former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu.
Besides, the VB has also initiated proceedings in the court against three accused -- R.K. Singla, Deputy Director with the food and civil supplies, and Pankaj Kumar and Inderjit Singh, both personal assistants of former food and civil supplies minister Ashu -- to declare them as proclaimed offenders.
A spokesperson for the VB said the bureau had already registered a case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and of the Prevention of Corruption Act against contractors Telu Ram, Jagroop Singh and Sandeep Bhatia and owners and partners of Gurdas Ram and Company, besides officers of the state Food and Civil Supply Department for allocation of labour and transportation tenders in grain markets.
He said Telu Ram, former minister Ashu and Krishan Lal Dhotiwala and Anil Jain, both commission agents, have already been arrested and all are in judicial custody.
The VB has already presented chargesheets against them in a court at Ludhiana.
The VB on Tuesday arrested two more accused -- Sukhwinder Singh Gill, then DFSC Ludhiana West, and Harveen Kaur, then DFSC Ludhiana East. At present Gill is posted as DFSC Faridkot and Harveen Kaur as DFSC Jalandhar.
He said the accused were members and conveners of district tender committee at the time of allotment of tenders. They along with other members of committee were responsible to check the relevant documents attached with the tenders including list of transport vehicles but they had not verified the registration numbers of vehicles intentionally as the number of scooters, motorcycles, among others, were mentioned in the attached list of vehicles.
Despite submission of wrong documents, they have allotted tenders to the favourite persons by accepting bribe money from them, he added.
Announcing an amnesty for defaulting domestic electricity consumers, Power Minister Harbhajan Singh said the outstanding electricity bills till December 31, 2021, of those who have not paid their dues till June 30, 2022, have been waived.
During the searches carried out at the factory premises over a period of two days, starting July 29, a large consignment of Ephedrine weighing 661 kg was recovered along with over 5200 kg of raw material, which was to be used in the manufacture of Ephedrine.
According to the police, the children had gone to take bath in the pond located between Methan and Sarawan villages. The deceased, all aged between five and 10 years, were the children of farm labourers working in the area. After the local people informed the police about the incident, the latter fished out the bodies with the help of firemen and divers. Th
The Income Tax Department on Wednesday said it recently carried out search and seizure operations on several groups engaged in healthcare services by running hospitals. A total of 44 premises were covered during the search action in Delhi-NCR.
According to the ED sleuths, five parking slots were reserved for Arpita Mukherjee at the Diamond City complex. And as per records five high-end vehicles, which include two Mercedes Benz vehicles, one Honda City, one Honda CR-V and Audi A4, were parked there till July 22 evening when the Central agency sleuths started raiding her flat in this housing complex.
A spokesperson for the Vigilance Bureau said during the investigation of a complaint, it was found that accused Bikrmajit Singh has misappropriated the money by misusing account IDs, passwords and details of other employees and bank managers during his posting in the bank from 2011 to 2016.
