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Punjab: Saraya Industries got no foreign funds since 2007, says Sukhbir
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on June 25 in a disproportionate assets case allegedly involving laundering of ₹540 crore “drug money”
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday dared Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann to prove that Saraya Industries, in which party leader Bikram Singh Majithia had an inherited share of 11%, had received even one rupee in foreign funding from 2007. Lashing out at the state government over Majithia’s arrest, the SAD chief said the case was registered only because Majithia had been “exposing” the dispensation over various issues.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on June 25 in a disproportionate assets case allegedly involving laundering of ₹540 crore “drug money”. It was Sukhbir’s maiden press conference after the arrest of Majithia. Regarding Saraya Industries Limited, he said, “The only foreign funding received by Saraya Industries was in March,2006 when it received ₹35 crore from United States-based Clearwater Corporation in exchange for 25% shares in the company. Majithia entered politics in 2007.” He also made it clear that all transactions of Saraya Industries were scrutinised and accepted by the Income Tax department.
Sukhbir also challenged the CM to prove the disproportionate assets case, asserting that the entire case was based on a bundle of lies. Sukhbir asserted that Mann had pressurised the state DGP to register the case because “Majithia had been constantly exposing him and his corrupt and immoral cabinet colleagues”. He termed the government action “vendetta politics”.
“An affidavit which the government had submitted to the Supreme Court in 2023 while appealing for cancellation of Majithia’s regular bail and seeking his custodial interrogation in an NDPS Act was used verbatim to register this new case against him. This was done despite the fact that the Supreme Court rejected the affidavit in April this year and refused to overturn the regular bail given to Majithia by the high court or grant the request for custodial interrogation,” Sukhbir said.
The SAD chief further said that the apex court even asked the AAP government to complete the probe in two days “following which it has now taken this new route to engage in political vendetta”.
He also condemned the manner in which former DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya and ex-deputy director of Enforcement Directorate Niranjan Singh were called by the Vigilance Bureau to share information regarding the drug case.
He claimed that his party had conclusive proof of the corrupt activities of the CM and his wife.
