M A I N   N E W S

City Centre Scam
Rs 100 crore collected for AICC, PPCC: Petition
S.S. Negi
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, June 13
In a startling disclosure made in Special Leave Petition (SLP) moved in the Supreme Court today by the Punjab government, challenging the anticipatory bail to former minister Jagjit Singh in the Ludhiana City Centre scam, it has been alleged that at least Rs 100 crore was collected from the project for payment to All India Congress Committee (AICC) and Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC).

An investigating report quoted directly from the Vigilance Bureau (VB) case diary and annexed with the SLP by the Punjab Government against Jagjit Singh claims that Ashok Garcha was removed from the chairmanship of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) after he refused to do anything related to the ‘collections’.

“Capt Rajesh, a close confidant of former CM Capt Amarinder Singh, had telephonically conveyed to Garcha that the AICC and PPCC office-bearers needed Rs 100 crore, and this money had to be taken out and given from the said project,” the probe report stated.

Since the then Congress government in the state saw Garcha as an “obstacle” in getting the money for the AICC, he was removed and P S Sibia, now a key accused in the case, was appointed in his place, the report forming a part of a voluminous SLP stated. After Sibia’s appointment, Jagjit Singh, the then local bodies minister, had clearly instructed him to give the contract to Today Homes, it further stated.

A report based on the statements of Manmohan Singh (superintending engineer) and Dayal Chand Garg (executive officer) - both connected with the project, as recorded by the Vigilance Bureau (VB), alleged that Rs 1 crore was paid by Today Homes official G K Ghambir to Jagjit Singh in a “black suitcase” in the denomination of Rs 1,000 currency notes during a meeting in May 2005 and the briefcase was carried to his Chandigarh residence by an officer connected with the project.

Besides this, during a single sitting at a hotel in Ludhiana, Ghambir paid Rs 25 lakh to the then MD of IPE, Rs 15 lakh to Gurdial Kaur Khurana (an LIT trustee), Rs 30 lakh to Sibia and Rs 5 lakh to one of the two engineers whose statements were recorded in the case diary after their arrest.

Punjab’s standing counsel Kuldip Singh moved the SLP ahead of the June-18 hearing on a bunch of 10 petitions by the state in the scam.

Claiming that evidence was collected about Jagjit Singh collecting money from various municipalities on a regular basis, the report also stated that collections, ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh, included those made in lieu of officials’ transfer.

Names of nearly a dozen officials who had paid the money to Jagjit Singh for their transfers were mentioned in the report.

When one SDO attached with the City Centre project refused to accept money from Ghambir, Jagjit Singh allegedly “tried to explain to him that such opportunities to make money do not come often in life and he should not close his doors to Goddess Laxmi. He also informed him (officer) that his share of Rs 5 lakh was kept with SE Manmohan Singh and he could take it when he wanted,” the report mentioned.

The municipal committees from which Jagjit Singh allegedly used to collect money on a monthly basis as mentioned in the report include Mohali, Nangal, Barnala, Phagwara, Pathankot and Khanna (Rs 25,000 each), Faridkot, Gurdaspur and Sangrur (Rs 20,000 each) and Kapurthala (Rs 30,000).