Fraudulent allotment of transportation tender: Ex-Punjab minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu's aide nominated by vigilance

LUDHIANA: The Vigilance Bureau nominated Pankaj Meenu Malhotra, a realtor and a close aide of ex-food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu in the case of allotting transportation tenders on the fake registration numbers of vehicles.
The bureau stated that Malhotra had direct involvement in the tender allotment to their favorable persons. The bureau also conducted a raid at his house on Wednesday.
On Tuesday the Punjab Vigilance Bureau registered a case against the owner, partners of Gurdas Ram and company, the officials of state Food and Civil Supplies department and the employees of concerned procurement agencies for committing irregularities in accepting labour, cartage and transportation tenders for grain markets in Ludhiana district. The bureau had also arrested accused proprietor Telu Ram of village Udhanwal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in this matter.
The Senior Superintendent of Police- Vigilance Bureau Ravinder pal Singh Sandhu said, “Pankaj Meenu Malhotra has been nominated in the FIR and a raid was also conducted at his house however he was not found there. Malhotra was directly involved in the allotment of tenders to their favourable persons despite them not complying with the norms. Besides, Telu Ram was also presented before the court and the court remanded him to three days in bureau’s custody."
Malhotra has been associated to Bharat Bhushan Ashu for about two decades, when Ashu was Municipal councilor. Malhotra used to call himself a personal assistant to Ashu.
The State Vigilance Bureau had registered a case under sections cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy etc and Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against Telu Ram, Jagroop Singh and Sandeep Bhatia, proprietors of the respective private firm besides unidentified government officials on Tuesday.
The bureau found that at the time of submitting tenders for the year 2020-21 with regard to labour, cartage and transportation works in Ludhiana district, the lists of vehicles submitted by the above mentioned contractors were containing registration numbers of scooters, motorcycles, cars and other vehicles, which were not verified by concerned officers of district tender committee due to criminal connivance with each other. He added that as per policy of the department it was mandatory for the committee to reject the technical bid for the above mentioned reason but the same was not done.
Further, in gate passes pertaining to loading and unloading of food grains, the registration numbers of vehicles used for the carriage have been found to be of scooters, motorcycles, and cars as such vehicles cannot transport goods.
The details of the registration numbers of the said vehicles as well as the quantity of the commodity mentioned in these gate passes prima facie appears to be a case of fake reporting and embezzlement of the food grains mentioned in these gate passes.
On the basis of these gate passes the department officials have made payments to Telu Ram contractor, Jagroop Singh, partner of Gurdas Ram and Company and Sandeep Bhatia contractor without verifying the same.
In this regard, the bureau registered a case against the above-mentioned private persons as well as department officials accused for submitting and accepting fake documents, conniving with each other for committing misappropriation and fake transportation of goods.