Parking scam: Prepare action-taken report for MHA, Chandigarh adviser directs MC
The ministry had sought Chandigarh administration reply after the Comptroller and Auditor General report pointed out inaction by it in the matter
Days after the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) sought a report from the UT administration pertaining to the multi-crore parking scam in Chandigarh, UT adviser Dharam Pal on Wednesday directed the municipal corporation (MC) to prepare a detailed action-taken report.
MC had awarded the contract of 57 Zone-2 parking lots to Paschatya Entertainment Private Limited in 2020 that got over in January this year. But the firm failed to pay licence fee worth ₹7 crore to MC, following which the civic body approached the bank concerned to recover the money through bank guarantees submitted by the contractor.
It was then found that three guarantees for ₹1.65 crore each were fake. Subsequently, a cheating case was registered against the firm’s directors Sanjay Sharma and Lalita Sharma.
The ministry had sought the reply after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report pointed out inaction by the UT administration in the matter of short recovery of parking fee by MC from two licensees, and loss of stamp duty and registration fee due to non-registration of the lease agreement.
Dharam Pal, after holding a meeting with senior MC officials, said, “I have asked the officials concerned that a detailed and factually correct action-taken report be submitted to the ministry.”
Recently, municipal commissioner Anindita Mitra had shot off a letter to the managing director-cum-chief executive officer of Canara Bank, asking the bank to deposit ₹1.65 crore after it was found that the parking contractor forged the three bank guarantees in connivance with the bank officials.
Mitra asked the bank to deposit the amount within 10 days, failing which MC will initiate legal proceedings against the bank.
The letter stated that the contractor submitted forged bank guarantees in connivance with officials of Canara Bank branch in Mori Gate. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for the contractor to submit forged bank guarantee, and commit fraud and cheating with the civic body. The bank and its officials are equally responsible for cheating and committing forgery with MC. The criminal intent of the bank officials stands corroborated with their arrest, the letter said.
On March 7, police arrested Sanjay from his office in Delhi. This was followed by the arrest of Ravi Chandra Prakash, the then bank officer of Syndicate Bank, Delhi, for issuing forged bank guarantees, and Anil’s accountant Ajay Kumar of Delhi. On March 23, Anil Kumar, the parking firm’s contractor, also surrendered. Syndicate Bank later merged with Canara Bank.
On April 8, acting on the findings of the CAG, the municipal commissioner had chargesheeted six officials of the civic body for failing to recover ₹8 lakh stamp duty from the two parking contractors of Zone 1 and Zone 2, whose term ended in January this year. MC also wrote to the UT administration to take action against former joint commissioner SK Jain in the matter. Among the officials chargesheeted are parking branch’s sub-divisional engineer Jagdeep Singh, superintendents Monil Chauhan and Sunil Dutt, senior assistants Kulbhushan and Pooja Kainth, and junior assistant Shakun.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is also investigating the case. The bureau had seized all records pertaining to parking contracts from the MC’s office in Sector 17 in this case in April.
