E-Paper
₹2,000-crore ‘scam’: Ex-minister Ashu in judicial custody
Ashu, who was arrested by the ED on August 1, had been in the central agency’s custody since August 2. He was sent to ED custody twice by the court.
The additional sessions court here on Monday sent former Punjab food and civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu to judicial custody in connection with an alleged ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case.
Ashu, who was arrested by the ED on August 1, had been in the central agency’s custody since August 2. He was sent to ED custody twice by the court.
The ED had initiated a parallel probe into the money trail under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) registered an FIR on August 16, 2022. In August last year, ED teams seized ₹6 crore and four bank lockers during raids at locations linked to Ashu and other accomplices besides seizing several incriminating documents, digital devices and ₹30 lakh of unaccounted cash from at least 10 locations.
On August 16, 2022, the VB registered a case against Ashu, his personal assistant Pankaj Kumar, alias Menu Malhotra, then food and civil supplies deputy director RK Singla, district food and civil supplies controller (DFSC) Rakesh Bhaskar, besides three contractors — Telu Ram, Yashpal, Ajaypal besides others — for committing the ‘fraud’, causing a huge loss to the state exchequer by allegedly committing irregularities in accepting labour, cartage and transportation tenders for grain markets in Ludhiana district.
An FIR was registered under Sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467 (forgery of valuable security, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120B (party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) of the IPC and Sections 7 (2), 8, 12 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act at the VB police station in Ludhiana.
