Court sends Punjab ex-minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu to five-day ED custody

Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, August 2
Former food and civil supplies minister and the working president of the Congress, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, was sent to Enforcement Directorate (ED) remand for five days after being produced in a local court on Friday. He was arrested in a tender ‘scam’-linked money- laundering case on Thursday.
The ED, through its lawyer Ajay Pathania, had sought a seven-day remand of Ashu but the court gave his custody to the Central agency till August 7. The Enforcement Directorate has submitted a case that the former minister was not cooperating with officials on their queries pertaining to the alleged money trail, which also reportedly involved his relatives.

ED relying on VB chargesheet

• The money-laundering probe stems from a Vigilance Bureau FIR registered in connection with an alleged scam related to the allotment of tenders for foodgrain transportation on fake registration numbers of vehicles
• The ED is relying on a 1,556-page chargesheet filed against Ashu by the Vigilance Bureau in a case lodged by it in September 2022. Ashu was arrested by the bureau in August 2022

Cong leaders express solidarity

• Bholath Congress MLA Sukhpal Khaira wrote on his ‘X’ handle: “Although agencies can probe and arrest anyone but the case of ED arresting him is a double jeopardy according to law. He was earlier arrested by the VB and spent seven months in jail. The ED arrest is also for the same crime, if committed.”
• Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana (from where Ashu hails) MP Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, too, has termed the ED action as vendetta politics. “I condemn the arrest of Bharat Bhushan Ashu. I stand with him during this tough time. Truth and justice will ultimately prevail.”

The lawyer pleaded that the ED needed at least seven days to quiz him about his connections with the contractors, whom his department was supposed to have favoured in allotting transportation tenders.
The Enforcement Directorate officials had submitted in court that they had come across some incriminating documents during a raid conducted on his premises in Ludhiana and that of contractors across Amritsar, Nawanshahr and Mohali in August last year. The ED wanted to question the Congress leader in this regard.
The Central agency had also seized gold and jewellery worth Rs 2.12 crore and deposits worth Rs 6.5 crore during the raid, the source of which they were yet to track. During interrogation, the officials have also been questioning him about the ground for tweaking the Transportation and Labour Cartage Policy, 2021, to favour certain contractors.
Serving as the working president of the Punjab Congress Committee currently, Ashu appeared in the ED office yesterday after being issued summons. He was interrogated from 10.30 am onwards. Since he was evasive on most questions, the officials announced his arrest by evening. He was taken to the Civil Hospital for his medical examination, after which he was shifted to the lock-up on the premises.
Congress MLAs Pargat Singh and Sukhwinder Kotli expressed solidarity with him and visited him in the hospital last evening and also at the PMLA court today.