Foodgrains transportation scam: Jalandhar court sends Ashu to 5-day ED custody
The additional sessions court here on Friday sent former Punjab food and civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu to five-day Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody in an alleged ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case
The additional sessions court here on Friday sent former Punjab food and civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu to five-day Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody in an alleged ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case.
The ED sought seven-day custody after extensively grilling the former minister continuously for over eight hours on Thursday.
Ashu has been on ED’s radar ever since the vigilance bureau arrested him in August 2022.
The ED had initiated a parallel probe into the money trail under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the VB registered an FIR on August 16, 2022.
One of the senior ED officials, who did not wish to be named, said that as per the investigation carried out so far in the case, it has been found that all the three contractors named in the FIR were in contact with the ex-minister and other senior officials of the department.
“His custody was required to get further detailed information on the money trail after the ED teams seized ₹6 crore and four bank lockers during raids at locations of Ashu and other accomplices in August last year. We had seized several incriminating documents, digital devices and ₹30 lakh of unaccounted cash from at least 10 locations,” an official said.
The investigators on Thursday had come up with a list of nearly 20 questions to Ashu pertaining to the allotment of tenders, mode of payment to the contractors, money trail, alleged investment of procured amount in real estate business and others.
On August 16, 2022, the vigilance bureau registered a case against Ashu, his PA 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. 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 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.
Ex-minister laundered tender ‘scam’ funds via shell companies: ED
Shell entities denote companies opened using KYC documents of innocent or gullible people to launder money at the behest of tax evaders and money launderers.
Warring condemns arrest
Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amarinder Singh Raja Warring in a post on X condemned the arrest. “We strongly condemn the arrest of Ashu by the ED. We stand by him. This vendetta politics cannot stop us from fighting for truth and justice.” Ashu represented Ludhiana (West) in the Punjab Assembly. Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira also condemned the arrest.