SAD chief Sukhbir dares Punjab CM Mann to prove foreign funding in Saraya Industries in which Majithia has shares

Badal said Clearwater Corporation, which had offices in several countries, had invested Rs 50,000 crore globally. “All money invested by this company through the NBFC in Saraya Industries was done after due clearance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).”

Badal made it clear that “all transactions of Saraya Industries were scrutinised and accepted by the Income Tax department. This clearly proves that claims of investment of Rs 540 crore in Saraya Industries through foreign funding are absurd and malicious, and being done with the sole purpose of defaming Majithia”.

He also clarified that “all cash transactions done by Saraya Industries while procuring sugarcane and conducting distillery business had also been scrutinised by the Income Tax department. Saraya Industries Ltd was a private limited company deemed to be a public limited company and was a different entity from Bikram Majithia and could not be associated with the latter. Majithia has no control over the company’s day-to-day functioning.”

Alleging that Mann “pressured the state DGP to register a case against Majithia” because the latter was constantly exposing him and his corrupt and immoral Cabinet colleagues, the SAD president said, “The chief minister rang up the DGP on the night of June 24 and threatened to remove him if he did not register a case against Majithia by the morning. Consequently, the DGP wrote to the Vigilance department to register a case against the Akali leader at 10.40 pm on June 24. Subsequently, a disproportionate assets case was registered against Majithia at 4.40 am on June 25.”

Badal said, “No investigation was done before registering the case. The Vigilance department did not deem it fit to issue a questionnaire to Majithia, a prerequisite before filing such a case. An affidavit which the government had submitted to the Supreme Court in 2023 while appealing for cancellation of the regular bail given to Majithia and seeking his custodial interrogation under the NDPS Act was used verbatim to register this new case against him.”

“This was done even though the Supreme Court rejected the affidavit in April this year and refused to overturn the regular bail given to Majithia by the high court or grant the request for custodial interrogation. The apex court even asked the AAP government to complete the probe in two days, following which it has now taken this new route to engage in political vendetta,” Badal alleged.

The SAD president also condemned how retired officers were being used by the AAP government to defame Majithia. “Former DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya is the same person who earlier registered a disproportionate assets case against former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and him, and even travelled to several countries on government expenses to find evidence of foreign properties owned by the Badal family. The entire case fell flat due to a lack of any evidence. Retired enforcement director Niranjan Singh was being involved, but the Enforcement Directorate, which had given a clean chit to Majithia, was being kept out of the ambit of the case,” he claimed.

Terming the entire case “illegal and a wilful fabrication”, Badal said, “We will go to the people and expose the AAP government.”

He claimed, “The party has conclusive proof of the corrupt acts of Bhagwant Mann and his wife Dr Gurpreet Kaur as well as Patiala SSP Varun Sharma, who was handling all illegal transactions for them and will hold them accountable for the same once the SAD forms a government in the state.”

He also questioned the formation of five SITs to probe the NDPS Act case against Majithia, adding present SIT head, Varun Sharma, was compromised due to his business links with the chief minister’s family. He said similarly, another SIT member, Singh Bains, had been dismissed from service for five years on corruption charges.

“The truth is the AAP government failed to find drugs in the NDPS Act case and any illegal assets in the disproportionate assets case,” Badal added.