E-Paper
Foodgrain transportation scam: Ashu’s bail plea dismissed in money-laundering case
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has already submitted detailed chargesheet against Ashu, his close associate Rajdeep Singh Nagra and 29 others, including officials of Punjab food and civil supplies department, in the special PMLA court in Jalandhar.
The special PMLA court in Jalandhar has dismissed a bail plea of former Punjab minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu in an alleged ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case. Ashu was arrested by the central agency on August 1.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has already submitted detailed chargesheet against Ashu, his close associate Rajdeep Singh Nagra and 29 others, including officials of Punjab food and civil supplies department, in the special PMLA court in Jalandhar. The chargesheet was moved under the Sections 3 (offence of money laundering) and 4 (punishment for money laundering) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED had initiated a parallel probe into the money trail under the PMLA after the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) registered multiple FIRs against Ashu and others in the tender scam.
The central agency investigation revealed that the then minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu favoured selected contractors in allotment of tenders and promising higher profits to them.
“In return, Ashu allegedly collected bribe from them through Rajdeep Singh Nagra, Rakesh Kumar Singla and other persons including a few government officers of Punjab Food and Civil Supplies Department. The bribe money was further laundered to purchase movable and immovable properties using network of shell entities,” the official spokesperson of ED stated.
On August 24 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. The similar raids were conducted on September 4 at Khanna and Issru village of Ludhiana district following which Rajdeep Nagra was apprehended.
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 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.
In the preliminary chargesheet filed by the VB, it was mentioned that the transportation, labour and cartage tenders allotted for the grain lifting process during Ashu’s tenure as the minister were stage-managed.
The vigilance bureau had claimed that at the time of submitting tenders for year 2020-21, the list of vehicles submitted by contractors contained registration numbers of scooters, motorcycles and cars, which were not verified by officials of the district tender committee due to criminal connivance with each other.
