Kurali land scam: Court asks collector if rent of Rs 2.5 lakh/month had been collected from ex-DGP Saini

The order was issued by Additional District and Sessions Judge, Parminder Singh Garewal after the collector had failed to submit a compliance report in the court.

The money received as bribe was utilised to purchase the house in Sector 20-D in the name of Jaspal.

3 min readMohaliSep 29, 2021 11:30 PM IST First published on: Sep 29, 2021 at 11:30 PM IST

The Mohali district court on Wednesday asked the District Collector to submit a report on whether a rent of Rs 2.5 lakh (per month) had been collected from former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP), Sumedh Saini, for a house that he was residing in Sector 20D in Chandigarh.

The order was issued by Additional District and Sessions Judge, Parminder Singh Garewal after the collector had failed to submit a compliance report in the court.

In line with its previous order, a show-cause notice had been published in the newspaper for persons who might stake a claim to the property or objections, if any, to the provisional attachment of the house. However, no one came forward on Wednesday.

On September 17 last year, Vigilance Bureau had registered a case against World Wide Immigration Consultancy Services (WWICS) Estates Pvt Ltd, Nimrat Deep Singh and Surinderjit Singh Jaspal at flying squad –I Punjab at Mohali, wherein Nimrat is accused of demanding a bribe from WWICS for facilitating regularisation of unauthorised residential colonies at Kurali. The money received as bribe was utilised to purchase the house in Sector 20-D in the name of Jaspal. Saini was allegedly living in the Sector 20-D house.

On July 16 this year, a Mohali court had ordered to provisionally attach House number 3048 in sector 20-D with directions that “tenant” Saini who was residing there would deposit Rs 2.5 lakh per month rent in the government treasury.

The vigilance bureau has also said that Saini, Nimrat Jaspal had allegedly also conspired to prepare a forged agreement to sell the Sector 20-D house. Jaspal had later produced the agreement before the investigating agency on April 30 to stall the proceedings of attachment in the court.

The vigilance bureau has submitted an application in January 2021 under the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance, for getting the house provisionally attached, declaring it to be proceeds of crime. Subsequently, the court ordered the attachment of the house on July 16 and further appointed the Mohali District Collector to collect a rent of Rs 2.5 lakhs. The owner of the house had claimed in court that Saini was staying in the house as a tenant. The court had observed that a no compliance report had been submitted by the collector.

The court has fixed October 22 as the next date of hearing.