Bharat Bhushan Ashu being produced in court. (File)The Ludhiana court of Additional Session Judge Ajit Atri on Friday dismissed the bail plea of former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu in an alleged grain-lifting, transportation and labour cartage tenders scam case.
Ashu, who was Punjab’s food and civil supplies minister in the previous Congress government, was arrested by the state vigilance bureau on August 22 and is currently lodged in Patiala jail.
Apart from Ashu, the court on Friday also dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Inderjit Singh Indi, an aide of Ashu, who has also been named as an accused in the case and is yet to be arrested. The vigilance bureau had claimed that after Ashu’s arrest, Indi was handed over a bag which probably contained some documents and other important material. According to the bureau, Indi was the closest confidante to the former minister and was working as his PA.
Advocate Balwinder Singh, special public prosecutor in the case, said that the court rejected Ashu’s bail plea on the grounds that “the investigation was still at an initial stage and seeing the gravity of offence against the former minister, there might be a possibility of witnesses being influenced if bail was granted.”
“The court has dismissed the bail pleas of both Ashu and his aide, Inderjit Singh Indi. Since the investigation is still ongoing and names of more accused might come up in the case, the court observed that there were no grounds to grant bail to the former minister as witnesses might be influenced or records and other evidence might be tampered with after his release,” said advocate Singh.
Ashu’s counsels, on the other hand, submitted in court that the former minister was “falsely implicated in the case” due to “political vendetta” and that “the grain-lifting and transportation policy was framed by the Cabinet, not him..”
Ashu’s counsels further submitted that “he was not responsible for implementation of the policy which was to be done at district-level.. and the tenders were allotted through e-tenders in which he had no role..”
Opposing Ashu’s bail plea, the prosecution submitted in court that Ashu was the main accused in the big scam, and that it was on his recommendation that another accused, Rakesh Kumar Singla (former deputy director of Punjab food and civil supplies department and currently absconding), was made the chairman of the vigilance committee against the norms even as he was already facing five chargesheets in the department.
The prosecution further submitted that another accused Telu Ram, a contractor, claimed having paid Rs 6 lakh as bribe for a meeting with Ashu and later he paid another 20 lakh as illegal gratification to Singla to get tenders of four clusters.
The court, while rejecting Ashu’s bail plea, in its written order said that the as per the vigilance bureau, the accused Telu Ram, who is a contractor,had said that first he paid Rs 6 lakh to another accused Pankaj Meenu Malhotra (Ashu’s PA) to “facilitate talks” with Ashu and then he was directed to Singla “to get his work done.”
He then paid 20 lakh to Singla on different dates, applied for the tender and bagged the same successfully. “As per investigation, a pocket diary has also been recovered from the house of Telu Ram, which has mention of Rs 20 lakh being transferred on different dates and Rs 6 lakh on three different dates….it connects the applicant (Ashu) with the process of allotment of tenders for the reason that contents of disclosure statement gets corroboration with contents of diary… it is really relevant evidence to prove prima facie involvement of the accused..,” the court said.
Further commenting on Ashu’s plea that co-accused Malhotra was not his personal assistant (PA), the court said: “He may not be the officially appointed PA of the applicant… but he had uninterrupted access and association to the applicant..”
The court further said that some details of phone calls between Ashu and Singla, Telu Ram and Malhotra, Singla and Malhotra and Telu Ram and Singla have also been put on record, which showed their close connection.
“Six properties have been identified till now involving interest of the applicant (Ashu) though these are stated to be of Malhotra or his relatives,” the prosecution told the court.
Dismissing Ashu’s bail application, the court ordered, “…at this stage, when the investigation is taken in its entirety, there is apparent involvement of the accused in the entire process right from the allotment of the tender. It is not in dispute that the applicant was the minister of the department…detailed enquiry has also been conducted before lodging the FIR and statements of witnesses recorded… the plea of political vendetta, at the first instance, seems to be attractive, but when the entire investigation till now is seen, the plea is not believable. The investigation is at the initial stage and as it proceeds and more accused are arrested, there seems to be the possibility of a much bigger scam than it looks at this stage. The gravity of the offence and possibility of influencing witnesses are also much relevant considerations .Seeing the nature of allegations and gravity of offence, the bail application is dismissed.”
Ashu’s counsel Parupkar Singh Ghumman said that they will now move the Punjab and Haryana High Court for bail.
7 booked, but only two arrested
The vigilance has alleged that Telu Ram, one of many such contractors, had bagged a contract for lifting and transporting wheat and paddy grains from mandis of Ludhiana district, after paying a bribe of Rs 26 lakh. The vigilance further said that the in-gate passes pertaining to loading/unloading of food grains and registration numbers of vehicles used for the carriage have been found to be of scooters/motorcycles/cars, which cannot transport foodgrains. 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.
The vigilance bureau has till date booked seven accused — contractors Telu Ram, Sandeep Bhatia and Jagroop Singh; former minister Ashu, his aides Malhotra and Inderjit Indi, and Singla, the dismissed official of the food department — in the case. Only Ram and Ashu have been arrested in the case, while the rest are absconding.