Punjab: Hours before he was to board flight to Australia, Dharamsot’s OSD nabbed

A senior functionary privy to the ongoing investigations into the corruption case in forest department, where Dharamsot, Chamkaur Singh and alleged conduit Kamaljit Singh have been arrested, told The Indian Express that the ex-minister’s OSD was to board a Singapore Airlines flight to Perth at 9am from Delhi.

The flight, with a layover time of 25 hours at Singapore, was to reach Perth at 11:55 pm on June 9. The ticket, sources said, was “booked from Gorakhpur”. The functionary said, Chamkaur probably had “got an inkling” that he “would have to face the law” after contractor Harmohinder Singh along with Mohali Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Gurmanpreet Singh was arrested in a bribery case on June 2.

The interrogation of Harmohinder led the VB to a diary that he had maintained in which he had allegedly documented the kickbacks received by the former ministers and officials of forest department. Harmohinder’s disclosure and subsequent investigations led to registration of a case under sections of Prevention of Corruption Act against Dharamsot, another former minister Sangat Singh Gilzian and seven others, including Chamkaur.

During probe, it was found that Dharamsot took a bribe of Rs 10 to 20 lakh in transfers, based on the divisions where transfer was sought. The rates for transfer of range officers ranged from Rs 5 to Rs 8 lakh, of block officer around 5 lakh and of forest guard from Rs two lakh to Rs three lakh.

The FIR noted that “this bribe was collected from the officials by Dharamsot’s OSD Chamkaur Singh and Kamaljit Singh with the consent of the minister”. The scale of alleged corruption could be gauged from the fact that Gilzian alone is alleged to have received bribe/commission to the tune of Rs 6.4 crore, in the purchase of tree guards alone. The FIR read that Harmohinder used to give bribe to forest officials, ministers and their OSDs and he used to talk to them via WhatsApp.