Probe reveals ex-agri director had turned ‘law unto himself’

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 9

As investigation in the pesticide scam unfolds, the government is now shocked at how former Agriculture Director Mangal Singh Sandhu — arrested for his role in allowing spurious pesticides to pervade the market – as it now appears, had turned a law unto himself.

Believed to be drawing his power from an aide of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Sandhu had “not just misused, rather surpassed” his financial powers as he ordered the purchase of the Oberon pesticide worth Rs 33 crore. The Punjab Financial Rules say that the head of a department has the powers to sanction non-recurring expenditure regarding contingencies up to a maximum of Rs 10 lakh. But in order to buy the 92,198 litres of Oberon, supplied by Bayer Crop Sciences, the former director allegedly used the funds that came to the Agriculture Department under the Crop Diversification Plan, to release a payment of Rs 16.50 crore to the company – without taking sanction of any competent authority.

Sources in the government have told The Tribune how Sandhu first moved a file saying that the department needed to purchase over 92,000 litres of pesticide in May 2015. As is the laid procedure, he moved the file to the Special Secretary, Agriculture, and the file reached Agriculture Minister Tota Singh on May 14, 2015. On May 18, the minister put up a note on the file, saying that “action be taken as per rules and in public interest”. As the file reached the director’s office, he formed a purchase committee, comprising Deputy Director (Cotton extension) Parminder Singh and then Joint Director, Agriculture, Balwinder Singh Sohal, which placed the order for purchase on May 28. “No senior official or the minister gave the approval for purchase of the pesticide and the decision was taken by the purchase committee,” said a source.

The pesticide was supplied in due course (50 per cent in .5-litre packings and the remaining in 1 litre packings) and started selling in the offices of Agriculture Department in July. The inquiry has shown that he bought the pesticide from Bayer Crop Sciences “without calling any tenders”, as is mandatory. He is also held guilty of buying the pesticide from a dealer (Bayer Crop Sciences) and not the manufacturer of the pesticide (Jammu-based Saraswati Agro Chemicals India Pvt Ltd).