17 yrs later, govt finds case ended at imposter’s behest

Rajmeet singh

Tribune News service

Chandigarh, July 22

In a 17-year-old case pertaining to the recovery of penal rent, it has come to the fore that a person posing as a government official had apparently taken the state and the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a ride.

During the hearing of the case in 2001, a verbal statement made before the court led it to write off the penal rent of Rs 5.77 lakh imposed on former Chairman of the Punjab Forest Development Corporation (PFDC) Manjinder Singh Kang for his alleged illegal stay at the circuit house in Sector 39 here for two years (1997-99).

Nearly 17 years later, the state government has again moved the High Court seeking rehearing in the case after a probe by the department of general administration (GAD) found that the recovery was still pending.

The inquiry found that within a week two separate statements were made in the court. In the first, the then Director (Hospitality) Karam Singh, in his reply filed in the court on November 29, 2001, said the recovery was pending against Kang.

On December 7, 2001, a namesake of Karam Singh, who identified himself as Director, PFDC, verbally told the court that the information furnished on the previous date (November 29) was incorrect and the department did not want to proceed further in the matter. No officer by the name of Karam Singh was then posted in the corporation, the probe said.

However based on the subsequent statement, the court proceedings for the recovery of penal rent were dropped.

Karam Singh has denied having given the second statement that favoured Kang. Based on the fact-finding inquiry, the department concluded that some unidentified person had appeared as Karam Singh to give the false statement that ultimately benefited Kang.

Kirpa Shankar Saroj, Secretary, GAD, said the department was seized of the matter and the needful was being done.