M A I N   N E W S

Search on for more touts
One SSP paid Rs 3.5 crore
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 29
The fate of all 91 appointments to the PCS, including 28 to the PCS (Executive Branch) and remaining to the allied services, made during the tenure of Ravi Sidhu as Chairman of the PPSC is uncertain. Also uncertain is the future of those appointed to the PCS (Judicial) during the same period.

Convinced that all top positions filled by Ravi Sidhu were either for a “bribe” or “on ‘sifarish’ of some influential people”, the police have set about their task for looking for at least another influential “broker’ after two of his major accomplices in one of the biggest-ever “recruitment scam” of the country were apprehended yesterday.

Developments during the past 24 hours have put big question mark on the credibility of the recruitment system to the premier service of the state as the ramifications of this scam have spread to various vital organs of the government, including executive and judiciary.

Many heads occupying “key positions” in the state administration — both at the district and subdivisional levels — may roll in the coming weeks as the police has been successful in securing “credible evidence” to prove that they got the jobs on considerations other than “merit alone”

Perhaps not even a single senior position, including those of nominations, were filled on merit as the details of money paid by several serving PCS officers, both Executive Branch and Judicial Branch were revealed by Randhir Singh Gill, alias Dhira, and Prem Sagar during the preliminary interrogation.

They also disclosed names of several other “sub-agents” or “scouters” who had been active in the whole episode.. But surprisingly neither Dhira nor Prem Sagar were able to throw any light on the “go-between” for the PPSC Chairman and the candidates for the PCS (Judicial).

While further investigations would continue, the Punjab Government , in the meanwhile, has recommended the dismissal of Ravi Sidhu as Chairman of the PPSC to the Governor of Punjab, Lieut-Gen J.F.R. Jacob (retd), late last night, for forwarding it to the President.

The arrest of Randhir Singh Gill, alias Dhira, and Prem Sagar has not only “corroborated” what Jagman Singh, a key figure in the case, has said in his statement made under Section 164 of the Cr PC before turning an approver in the case, but also thrown light on how “influential and people with money” entered premier Civil Services of the state.

For Randhir Singh Gill, alias Dhira, an employee of Markfed, details of “deals” he made between the “willing candidates” on one hand and the PPSC Chairman on the other in the past five years are as fresh in his mind as if these happened only yesterday.

Interestingly, it was his disclosure that named a “beneficiary” correctly as police was carrying a list with a wrong surname of the same candidate. One of several shocking revelations made by Randhir Singh, alias Dhira, has been about a former district police chief, who allegedly shelled out a whopping Rs 3.5 crore to get his son (Rs 2.8 crore) recruited as DSP and his daughter (Rs 70 lakh) as a PCS officer.

“It was not me alone. There were others who acted on my behest and brought prospective candidates before I negotiated with them on one hand and the PPSC chairman on the other,” Dhira is believed to have told the police during the first round of his interrogation, maintaining that he, after fixing an appointment with Sidhu would call the candidate or his/her representative, parents or guardian to the Sector 10 market before depositing the “asked amount” at the Sector 10 residence of Ms Pritpal Kaur, mother of the PPSC Chairman.

While Jagman Singh’s role was limited to stashing the bribe money, delivering question papers or providing room and question papers to some of the candidates at his Sector 9 residence, besides acting as a “go-between” for the PPSC Chairman and the examiners, the role of Randhir Singh Gill, alias Dhira, was perhaps of more responsibility.

He told the police that when the Punjab Government put a blanket ban on fresh recruitments, Sidhu tried to use Mr Adesh Partap Singh but did not succeed. He ultimately himself approached the then Punjab Chief Minister.

While Dhira claims that Sidhu had told him that he had to recruit three of the Chief Minister’s men, namely Kala Singh’s son, a son of the late Punjab minister Sujan Singh and the would-be son-in-law of Mr Inderjit Singh, a relative of the Chief Minister, in the police as DSPs to get the ban on recruitments lifted. The police are, however, verifying this part of the disclosure made by Dhira.

Dhira had been associated with Sidhu soon after he took over as Chairman of the PPSC. Others whose names have figured in the list of “agents” or “touts” include Prem Sagar, Paramjit Singh, alias Pammi, H.L. Bansal (a PCS Officer), Bir Pal Singh ( a PCS officer), G.S. Hundal (Markfed), Opinder Sharma (Markfed), Kamaljit Singh Lalli (Amritsar) and a few others. Dr Shamsher Singh, one of the original “touts” is still absconding.

Dhira revealed that the rate of recruitment varied between Rs 15 lakh to Rs 2.8 crore. The lowest payees were a couple of tehsildars and a PCS officer who got in against the ex-servicemen’s quota. They paid Rs 15 lakh each.

Some concessions were offered in case of husband and wife and even brothers. Interestingly, in the “tainted officials list” prepared by the police, appears a couple, who jointly paid Rs 52 lakh to get into the PCS. Two brothers had doled out Rs 1.10 crore to join the PCS.

According to Dhira, H.L. Bansal was his first client who got into the PCS from the quota of ETOs. Subsequently, Bansal brought in two brothers, Jiwan Kumar Garg and Kamal Kumar Garg, who were appointed to the PCS after allegedly paying Rs 1.10 crore. Bansal was introduced to Dhira by Mr Bir Pal Singh, a PCS officer, who also came from the ETO wing but much before Sidhu had become the Chairman of the PPSC. Bansal had to pay Rs 25 lakh to get into the PCS.

Dhira also named a couple of senior members of the Judicial Service, including high court Judges, who were beneficiaries. In one case, the PPSC Chairman had differences afterwards with a senior member of the judiciary after he came to know that the person recruited by him on “sifarish” to the PCS from the “ministerial staff quota” had paid some money to the one who had recommended his name.

Don’t confirm appointees: HC
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 29
Issuing notice of motion to the state of Punjab, the Chief Secretary and Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed the state and its functionaries not to confirm employees on the posts to which they were selected by the Punjab Public Service Commission chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu.

Taking up a public interest litigation and another petition filed by a social organisation, Common Cause Forum, Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Mr Justice M.M. Kumar of the High Court directed that the candidates selected, but awaiting appointment, would not be appointed without permission of the court. The stay orders on appointments, the Judges explained, would apply to all posts. The Judges also asked the state government to explain whether accountability would be fixed on persons responsible for appointing Sidhu member and chairman of the PPSC. The case will now come up for hearing on May 15.

In their detailed orders, the Judges clarified that the petition should not be treated as an obstruction in the probe being conducted against Sidhu and others responsible for the selections. Taking suo motu notice of reports published in several newspapers, including The Tribune, on investigation in the case pertaining to PPSC chief Sidhu, another Bench of the High Court had earlier asked the Secretary in the Ministry of Personnel and Home to show cause why the “selection of PCS (Judicial), Deputy Superintendents of Police, lecturers and doctors, besides Block Development and Panchayat Officers, for at least the current year should not be set aside”.

The Bench, comprising Mr Justice Swatanter Kumar and Mr Justice Jasbir Singh, had also asked the Secretary to give details of the record destroyed or burnt during the past one year, besides information regarding the authority responsible for the same. The Judges had also directed him to explain why the commission should not be restrained from making “any recommendation or appointment to the various cadres of the state services” and why the “appointments on the basis of the recommendations now made by the commission should not be stayed”.

The Judges had observed: “Press reports of the last two weeks, referring to the progress in the investigation of a case registered against the PPSC chairman, would shock the conscience of a normal person and distort public faith in the very functioning of the commission. The constitutional dignity of the commission has been shattered and the faith of the common man in its very functioning destroyed by allegations of corrupt practices adopted by the chairman and other functionaries. Even if an iota of the reports are to be believed, it is disaster. It would completely destroy the spirit of the system adopted by the quarters concerned for recommendations and appointments to various higher services of the state cadres”.

Touts confess paying 16 cr to Ravi Sidhu
Tribune News Service

Kharar, April 29
A whopping sum of Rs 16 crore was paid to PPSC Chairman Ravi Sidhu by his two main conduits, Randhir Singh Dhira, a Deputy Manager in Markfed, and Prem Sagar, a petrol pump owner, for the selection of 28 candidates to the PCS and allied services during year 2001. Both were arrested by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau sleuths from Chandigarh last night.

With the confessions of the two kingpin in the one of the major recruitment scams in the state’s top recruitment agency, many heads in the Punjab Civil Services are expected to roll. The names of the 28 candidates who paid to get into the services were today submitted in the court of the Judicial Magistrate, Kharar.

Officials of the Vigilance Bureau said the huge sum was paid for the selection of 28 candidates, including many wards of VIPs. Randhir Singh Dhira, said to be the main contact person of Ravi Sidhu, was the main link for Prem Sagar who has confessed to having collected Rs 4.59 crore for the selection of six candidates in the PCS.

Though both men are reported to have collected Rs 22 crore at the behest of Ravi Sidhu for the selections in the past five years, in the confession statement submitted by the vigilance bureau sleuths in the court of the Judicial Magistrate, Kharar, Mr Roshan Lal Chouhan, it has been said that Randhir Dhira collected Rs 11. 39 crore for getting 22 candidates selected against the following categories — six PCS (executive), one PCS ( allied), three PCS( Judicial), two DSPs and 10 tehsildars promoted to the PCS. The officials said at least 50 per cent of those selected were serving and the remaining had only cleared the test.

The SP (Vigilance), Mr Jaskaran Singh, told TNS that further investigations were on to dig in more details. He said the selections of the DSPs had already been quashed. The officials were, however, quiet over the commission charged by the conduits of the PPSC Chairman. A DSP( Vigilance), Mr Surjit Singh Khosa, who was accompanying the two men to the Kharar court for their police remand, said further investigations were on.

While hearing the Public Prosecutor, Mr Jatinder Pal Singh Punn, who sought a 10-day remand for the two men, said the investigating agency had got little time to question the two. Details like the modus operandi of charging the money were being sought from the two kingpin. Counsel of Dhira and Prem Sagar said the Vigilance Department had been told all that the two knew but no recovery had been made. After hearing both sides, the Judicial Magistrate remanded them to police custody till May 2. The court ordered that the accused be produced in the same court on May 3.