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Mohali land transfer case: HC quashes FIR against ex-minister Arora, 11 others
The judgment is yet to be released. Senior advocate APS Deol said that the FIR has been quashed against the accused.
The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) on Friday quashed an FIR pertaining to an alleged illegal transfer case of an industrial plot to a real estate company, involving former Congress industries minister Sunder Sham Arora, an IAS officer and 10 others.
The judgment is yet to be released. Senior advocate APS Deol said that the FIR has been quashed against the accused. The FIR was registered by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on January 5, 2023. Besides Arora, IAS officer Neelima and 10 other officials were named as accused in the case. There were allegations of “wrong bifurcation” of a 25-acre plot for setting up a township in Mohali’s Phase 9 industrial area. According to the allegations, it was done allegedly to benefit a realty firm ‘Gulmohar Township Private Limited’, causing a huge loss to the state exchequer.
The Vigilance Bureau had registered the case under Sections 13 (1) (a) and 13 (2) of The Prevention of Corruption Act besides criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy, claiming that had they sold the land as per the rules, the government would have got a revenue of ₹600 crore to ₹700 crore. The plot was allotted to Anand Lamps Limited through a sale deed in 1987 which was later transferred to a firm, named Signify Innovations. This plot was then sold to Gulmohar Township through a sale deed by Signify Innovations after procuring a no-objection certificate from the Punjab Small Industries Export Corporation (PSIEC) when Arora was the minister, as per vigilance claims.
The former minister and others had approached the high court in April 2023 seeking quashing of the FIR. The former minister had argued that he was a victim of “political vendetta” as multiple cases had been registered to ensure that “he be kept behind bars”. He was facing multiple probes at the time of registration of this FIR.
