Wheat ‘bungling’ case falls flat, two officials acquitted

Aman Sood

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Tribune News Service

Patiala, February 15

A local court today acquitted two senior Food and Civil Supplies officials and five ration depot holders in a six-year-old case of alleged bungling of subsidised wheat in Nabha.

The Vigilance Bureau had registered an FIR in November 2012, accusing the officials and the depot holders of selling subsidised wheat meant for poor in the open market.

The court acquitted the accused as the VB failed to prove the charge. “The Vigilance officials presented 72 witnesses, but none of them could say with certainty that the subsidised wheat did not reach the poor,” said Deepak Sood, counsel for the two government officials.

Those named in the FIR were the then Assistant Food Supplies Officer Charanjit Singh Grover, Food Inspector Mohit Aggarwal, depot holders Dheeraj Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Ram Singh, Satpal and Avtar Singh. It was claimed that over Rs 37 lakh was usurped after wheat from the ration depots run by Dheeraj Kumar and his father Pawan Kumar was sold in the grain markets of Khanna, Bhadson, and Amargarh for Rs 1,500 per quintal.

In its challan, the VB had claimed to have found irregularities in the stock after it checked the records of the release of wheat to depots and its disbursement to the beneficiaries.