Bailable warrants issued against Gian Sagar Trust chairman

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 20

A local court issued bailable warrants against Nitender Singh, chairman of the Gian Sagar Educational and Charitable Trust, Banur, in multiple cheque-bounce cases today.

As many as 20 complaints were filed against the trust as well as its chairman after the salary cheques issued to doctors and teachers were dishonoured. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for February 1.

As many as 300 such doctors and teachers were not paid till October 2016. The salary cheques, signed by Nitender Singh and issued to all these persons, had bounced and 20 of them moved court. Almost all these cheques were for lakhs of rupees as monthly salaries of the complainants ranged from Rs 70,000 to Rs 90,000.

The cheques were issued in June this year to be drawn from Punjab National Bank, Sector 16 branch. According to the complaints, the bank returned the cheques with remarks, “Funds insufficient” and “Drawer’s signature differs”.

The counsel for the complainants, Pardhuman Garg, said, “The fraud is intentional as the accused made fake signatures in front of the complainants.”

The accused had earlier been summoned by the court, but he failed to appear after which the warrants were issued.

The complainants even served legal notice to the chairman to make the payment within 15 days. However, the payment has not been made till date. They have now demanded double the amount as compensation.

The complaints were made under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The college ran into trouble in 2016 when teachers started an indefinite protest for not being paid for months. The Punjab Government had to be involved after the management expressed inability to make the payments. The government ultimately revoked all permissions to run the college and it was closed down in June. In the same month, 1,500 students, including 500 MBBS students, were shifted to other Punjab colleges.