Cook’s company gave loan of Rs 50 lakh to Rana Gurjit

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 1

Punjab Irrigation and Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh has denied any links with Amit Bahadur, his Rs 26-crore sand mine successful-bidder cook, but documents show that he, his family-owned company and brother received a loan of Rs 5.79 crore in 2015-16 from a company in which Amit Bahadur was shown as a director.

As per the records with The Tribune, the Minister received a loan of Rs 50 lakh, the family-owned company Rana Polycot Ltd received a loan of Rs 3.84 crore and his brother Rana Ranjit Singh (co-founder of Rana Group) received Rs 1.45 crore as loan from Flawless Traders (P) Ltd. The loan was given by the company in 2015-16 for “business purposes”. Bahadur was director of Flawless Traders till March 21, 2017.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) 

According to the 2015-16 balance sheet of the company filed with the Registrar of Companies, Flawless Traders through its cash reserves raised through “inter-corporate interest-free loans” also invested around Rs 22.48 crore by purchasing shares in the family-owned companies of the Minister — Rana Polycot Ltd Rs 15.28 crore, Lakshmiji Sugar Mills Co Ltd Rs 7.09 crore, and Rana Sugars Ltd Rs 10.55 lakh.

Surprisingly, the company did not transact any business during the year, as per the company directors’ report to the shareholders.

According to the 2014-15 and 2015-16 balance sheets, the company stated zero income and claimed it did not transact any business during the year. Even with zero income, Flawless Traders had total long-term liabilities of Rs 51.84 crore, which is an un-secured interest-free loan as on March 31, 2016. The 2014-15 and 2015-16 filing does not show the sources from where the money was raised.

According to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) records, the total paid-up capital of Flawless Traders was Rs 1 lakh as on March 31, 2016. Paid-up capital is the amount of money received from shareholders or promoters in exchange for shares of stock.

The shareholders — PV Mohan and Ajay Inder Majithia — each are having 50 per cent stake in the company. Each was having 5,000 shares, with a share valued at Rs 10. According to the RoC filing, as on March 31, 2016, the registered address of PV Mohan was shown as 5809, Sector 38 (West) in Chandigarh and Majithia’s as 89, Sector 28-A.

While PV Mohan sold the house around three years back, Majithia vacated the house around four years ago, neighbours told The Tribune.