A former minister in the Congress-led authorities and 11 officers, together with one senior IAS officer, have been booked by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Thursday in reference to an industrial plot rip-off.

A prison case was registered towards former minister Sham Sunder Arora, IAS officer Neelima and 10 different authorities officers for the alleged switch and bifurcation of an industrial plot to a realty firm and permitting it to ascertain a township by reducing plots. Three house owners of a realty agency, Gulmohar Township Private Limited, have additionally been booked in the case.

Among these arrested are seven officers of Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC) – property officer Ankur Chaudhary, GM personnel Davinderpal Singh, chief normal supervisor (planning) JS Bhatia, assistant city planner (planning) Ashima Aggarwal, govt engineer Parminder Singh, DA Rajat Kumar and SDE Sandeep Singh. The bureau alleged they conspired to offer undue profit to the realty agency.

A bureau spokesperson stated the Punjab authorities had allotted 25 acres to Anand Lamps Ltd by a sale deed in 1987, which was later transferred to a agency named Signify Innovations. This plot was then bought to Gulmohar Township by a sale deed by Signify Innovations after procuring a no-objection certificates from the PSIDC. On March 17, 2021, then business and commerce minister Sundar Sham Arora forwarded a letter to then PSIDC MD obtained from Gulmohar Township for additional bifurcation of plots.

He additional stated the PSIDC MD has fashioned a departmental committee to look at the proposal of this realty agency, which authorised its proposal to bifurcate plots from 12 to 125 plots with out taking discover of proposal report, challenge report, articles of affiliation and memorandum of affiliation. In addition to this, the committee had advisable the proposal of Gulmohar Township with out consulting Punjab Pollution Control Board, municipal company, electrical energy board, forest division, state fireplace brigade amongst others.

During the investigation by the forensic science laboratory, it has additionally been discovered that two pages of the noting on file didn’t match with the remainder of the pages hooked up in the file. It was discovered that the committee members have hooked up faux paperwork and didn’t scrutinise the appliance totally.

The spokesperson additional stated as per the deed of 1987, this plot was for use for industrial functions solely and Gulmohar Township has no such background.

The committee members, together with Neelima, then MD and Arora conspired and misused their official positions to offer unfair benefit to the house owners/administrators of Gulmohar Township Company Jagdeep Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Rakesh Kumar Sharma, alleged the bureau.

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