Pesticides scam: Former agriculture director Sandhu, 2 others acquitted

BATHINDA : Eight years after a departmental probe indicted him for irregularities in the purchase of pesticides after whitefly attack on cotton crop in 2015, a Bathinda court acquitted former state agriculture director Mangal Singh Sandhu in a corruption case.

Then joint director, agriculture, Nirankar Singh and a pesticide supplier, Ankush Goyal, were also acquitted in the fake pesticides scam.

Additional public prosecutor Harpreet Singh Mansahia said on Wednesday that additional district and sessions judge Hira Singh Gill sentenced pesticide dealers Vijay Kumar and Shubham Goyal a two-year jail term. The court pronounced the verdict on March 31, but it was uploaded on the website on Wednesday.

The detailed judgment citing reasons for acquittal and conviction is still awaited.

According per the order, Kumar and Goyal were held guilty of violating provisions of the Fertilisers Control Order 1985, Essential Commodities Act and Insecticides Act.

The convicts had a godown at Raman Mandi town of Bathinda and a case registered on September 2, 2015, after a large stock of spurious insecticides was seized.

Due to whitefly infestation, there was a massive dip in the cotton yield that year. The crop damage was attributed to substandard pesticide that failed to contain the attack of the deadly pest in semi-arid districts of Punjab.

Loss of cotton crop, considered the economic lifeline of the agrarian community of southwest Punjab, led to massive outrage in the state and the then Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government had to shell out more than ₹600 crore to compensate farmers for a manmade disaster.

A fact-finding committee constituted by then Parkash Singh Badal government found that Sandhu had ordered the purchase of “Oberon” pesticides worth ₹14 crore by forming a purchase committee without following procedure.

Sandhu was removed from his post by the then SAD-BJP government and he along with others were arrested.

Spurious pesticides allowed whitefly to ravage cotton crop over two-third of the total 4.5-lakh hectares. The total loss was estimated at ₹4,000 crore, which triggered farmers’ suicides in the cotton belt.

In 2015, the police had claimed recovery of ₹4 lakh in Indian currency, 12,000 US dollars, 1,300 Canadian dollars and 53 bottles of imported wine and liquor from Sandhu’s residence in Chandigarh.