Foodgrain transport contract scam: Ashu’s PA bought 6 prime properties in 3 years: VB

LUDHIANA: Investigations into the grain transport scam involving former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu as accused have revealed that his personal assistant (PA) Meenu Pankaj Malhotra, who is on the run in the case, purchased as many as six properties, both residential and commercial, in a quick span of three years during the previous Congress government’s regime when Ashu was the food and supply minister.

The Punjab vigilance department is now probing whether it was the ex-minister who invested the money in crores allegedly accepted as illegal gratification (through the ₹2000 crore scam) into the said properties in his PA’s name.

A day after Ashu was remanded in four days of police custody, sleuths of the Vigilance bureau are scrutinising the ex-minister’s financial assets and also looking into his bank accounts and several financial dealings made over the last few years.

“We have also procured a list of investors with whom Ashu was in touch and will be summoning them as part of investigations. It is a matter of probe as to how Ashu’s PA can amass as many as six prime properties worth many crores in two to three years’ time post 2017. We will be investigating if Ashu is involved in purchase of these properties,” said SSP vigilance Ravinder Pal Singh Sandhu.

Vigilance has already established that accused contractor Telu Ram purchased land measuring 20 acres and accused deputy director food and civil supplies (now dismissed) Rakesh Kumar Singla also purchased number of properties post the tenders were allotted.

The Punjab vigilance bureau had first registered a case on August 16 against three persons of a firm and officials of the state food and civil supplies department for alleged irregularities in the allotment of tenders for labour, cartage and transportation for lifting foodgrains in Ludhiana. One of the accused, Telu Ram of village Udhanwal in SBS Nagar, was later arrested.

During the investigation, it was found that at the time of submitting tenders for the year 2020-21 for labour, cartage and transportation works in Ludhiana, the lists of vehicles submitted by some contractors had registration numbers of scooters, motorcycles and cars which were not verified by the officials due to alleged criminal connivance with each other.

Telu Ram submitted to VB that he met Bharat Bhushan Ashu through his personal assistant Meenu Malhotra to get tenders for 2020-21 who told him to meet Rakesh Kumar Singla, deputy director food and civil supplies.

Based on revelations and the material evidence, Bharat Bhushan Ashu was named as accused in this case and arrested on August 22. As both Ashu and contractor Telu Ram were produced in court on Tuesday, Telu denied having ever met Ashu earlier, making a flip-flop from his previous statements given to VB.

“Telu Ram was of course told by the defence counsel to say that he never met Ashu in court. He has confessed to us and narrated the entire sequence on how he met Ashu which we have also corroborated with our own investigation. These things won’t affect the case,” added SSP Sandhu.