Punjab ex-MLA arrested for owning disproportionate assets
Darpan News Desk IANS, 16 May, 2023 11:10 AM
Chandigarh, May 16 (IANS) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, the former MLA from Faridkot, for possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income.
A spokesperson for the bureau said a corruption case has been registered him along with Gursewak Singh and Rajwinder Singh.
He said to assess all moveable and immovable assets of Dhillon, a check period has been fixed for five years from April 1, 2017. During the probe, it was found that he had created wealth more than all his income and purchased properties in the names of other persons in Mumara village in Sadik tehsil in Faridkot district.
It was also found that he had made expenditures of about 245 per cent than his known sources of income, he added.
A case under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against them. The former MLA will be produced in a court on Wednesday.
He is survived by son and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and daughter Parneet Kaur and grandchildren. He lost his life-partner, Surinder Kaur, in 2011.
The accused were identified as Sukhvinder Singh Sahani (51) and his wife Sheetal Sahani (49). The couple was arrested on April 24, after an investigation was initiated into a complaint filed by Rashmi Batra.
Officials said that the ticketing squad at the Kongdoori station of Gulmarg Gondola caught 11 tourists from Gujarat along with a local guide, who had come to board the cable car from Kongdoori to Gulmarg on fake and edited tickets.
The police have also recovered over 300 kilograms of cannabis worth more than Rs 1 crore from them. The accused were identified as Pratap (45), a resident of Rampura in Delhi; Lakhan (23) and Pooran (22) - both residents of Okhla Mod.
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, in a tweet, said: "As per the provisions under the Constitution of India, the following Additional Judges are appointed as Permanent Judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court: Vikas Bahl, Vikas Suri, Sandeep Moudgil, Vinod Sharma (Bhardwaj), Pankaj Jain, and Jasjit Singh Bedi."
Throughout his political career, Badal, who had once compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to former US President Abraham Lincoln, had always expressed "immense satisfaction and pride" over the strong and principled stand taken by his party "to save the beleaguered peasantry and the country".