New Delhi, July 6
In a series of allegations about illegal transactions against Mr Parkash Singh Badal, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) has maintained before the Delhi High Court that the former Chief Minister’s OSD, Hardeep Singh, was instrumental in converting black money of the Badal family into white with the help of Kanwal Sidhu, a London-based NRI and owner of the international food chain company Wimpy’s.

The bureau in its reply to Wimpy and its five officials’ writ petition, has said the state has announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh against Hardeep Singh’s whereabouts.

“The investigation has revealed that the modus operandi of the accused was that Hardeep Singh used to bring the black money to Sidhu who in turn used to make entries into his account books and then transfer the same to the account of Sukhbir Badal and others,” the bureau in its reply said.

The reply filed through Punjab Additional Advocate-General said since Hardeep Singh “is absconding, the government has announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh to be given to a person who would give information regarding his whereabouts.”

The bureau team while investigating the case “came across incriminating material to show that Hardeep Singh was instrumental in transferring the black money of Badal family. Huge transactions had been made which directly connected the accused (Hardeep) and close friends and relatives of Mr Badal and his family,” it said.

Narottam Singh Dhillon, a close relative of the former Chief Minister, had also been arrested for making “huge financial transaction for and on behalf of the Badal family,” it said.

Claiming that during the investigation of the crime, the team had come across “unimpeachable material to show that Sidhu, MD of Wimpy’s international, had made huge investments in business concerns of the Badal family, especially M/s Orbit Resorts, Gurgaon, it said Wimpy officials were “instrumental in converting the black money of the Badal family into white by making bogus entries in their accounts.”

The material collected during the search of Wimpy premises, had revealed that there were “direct entries of the petitioner company amounting to Rs 6 crore, which were linked with the Badal family. Besides, huge investments had been made on opening new fast food outlets by Sidhu in the name of the company in Delhi, Mauritius and other places,” the Vigilance Bureau alleged.

Since Wimpy officials in their petition had said they could not be arrested under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act or the Foreign Exchange Management Act the bureau said though they had not been arrested under the provisions of these laws, their contention in this regard was “misplaced”.

The bureau said during the search at the house of Narottam Singh Dhillon at F-130, Sainik Farms, in New Delhi, “incriminating material was found which revealed that the family of Mr Badal and Hardeep Singh had made financial transactions.”

The bureau had arrested Wimpy’s vice-president Yash Dhawan, Director (finance) Raj Kumar Gupta, Deputy Manager (finance) Sanjeev Kulshreshta and two drivers on June 14.

The officials, however, said they were detained “illegally” without informing the police.

They had also pleaded innocence before the high court and claimed that they had no connection with Mr Badal or any person close to him.

However, the bureau in its reply said the assistance of the Delhi police was sought every time when investigation was made against the company.