Punjab vigilance bureau arrests ex-minister Sunder Sham Arora for bribing officials

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab vigilance bureau has arrested former industries and commerce minister Sunder Sham Arora on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday from Zirakpur in Mohali district while offering Rs 50 lakh to vigilance officials to settle his disproportionate assets case.
Former Congress leader Arora had joined the BJP in June this year along with other former cabinet ministers. The vigilance bureau had questioned Arora about his properties on September 21 and then on October 12.
Chief director of state vigilance bureau ADGP Varinder Kumar said, “Arora has been arrested from the parking of Cosmo Mall Zirakpur in the night when he handed over a bag containing Rs 50 lakh to a vigilance officer in a vehicle. It was a pre-planned exercise and we had laid a trap.”
The chief director further added that Arora had offered Rs 1 crore to the vigilance officer AIG Manmohan Kumar to settle the case and he had come to a place in Zirakpur to hand over the first installment of Rs 50 lakh. He informed that an FIR has been registered against Arora under section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act at Mohali and he would be produced before the Mohali court on Sunday.
“We are further probing from where Arora had got this money and also about the role of other persons connected to him,” said the chief director.
Arora had offered Rs 1 crore bribe to the AIG on October 14 by visiting his residence in Zirakpur where the vigilance had laid the trap. The vigilance bureau chief director further added that the vigilance is investigating a disportionate assets case against Arora.
Also, verification is under process in other cases related to the allegations of irregularities in allotment of industrial plots of Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation(PSIEC) and also about a 32 acre commercial plot in Mohali of now liquidated JCT Electronics Limited which was sold to a realty firm causing loss to state exchequer.
But Arora had been refuting all the allegations against him.