M A I N   N E W S

Akali MLA Jain, family get 1-yr jail for raising illegal colony
Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service

Moga, June 2
In an embarrassment to the SAD-BJP government, a local court today sentenced Akali MLA and chairman of the Punjab Warehouse Corporation Joginder Pal Jain, his wife, younger son and daughter to one-year jail for developing an illegal colony in Moga.

The MLA, his wife Swaran Lata Jain, younger son Akshit Jain and daughter were all present in the court when the orders were pronounced by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Sangeeta Saluja.

The court convicted the Jain family to one-year imprisonment for the violation of Section 36 and six-month jail for the violation of Section 3 of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995. Both the terms will run concurrently. The court has also imposed a fine of Rs 1,500 on each of them. The court, however, released the convicts on bail after they deposited the fine and furnished bail bonds.

Jain's elder son Puneet Jain, who lives in Canada, had already been declared a proclaimed offender in the case.

The case was registered against Jain, his wife, two sons and daughter on August 26, 2007, on a complaint filed by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) under Sections 2 (i), 3, 5, 21 and 36 of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, at the Mehna police station in Moga. They were charged with raising an unauthorised residential colony on the outskirts of Moga city.

Although a junior engineer of GLADA had stated in the court on February 17 that they do no wish to continue legal proceedings against Jain, the court turned down the request.

A notification on the new policy for compounding/regularisation of unauthorised colonies and plots/buildings under the provisions of the Punjab Laws (special provisions) Act, 2013, was issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on August 21, 2013, which means that such offences would no longer proceed in the judicial courts provided that violators deposit the compounding fee to regularise their colony. Under this waiver scheme, Jain had deposited 25 per cent of the compounding fee, which amounts to Rs 2.25 lakh.

Jain said he would file an appeal before the court against the conviction. "The FIR registered against us is false, fabricated and politically motivated. The plots were sold as agriculture land and affidavits were filed by the buyers that they had purchased these plots for growing vegetables/fruits. Therefore, there was no question of violations of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995," he said.

Criminal past

* A case under Sections 132 and 135 (I) (A) of the Customs Act, 1962, was registered against Jain in the late eighties. The trial court acquitted him but the customs department filed an appeal which is still pending in the Delhi High Court.

* He remained in the jail for a few months under preventive detention soon after he became MLA for the first time in 2007 under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA).

* A case under Sections 419 and 471 of the IPC was registered against Jain for making a fake passport at the IGI Airport police station, New Delhi in 1988.

* The police registered a case against Jain under Sections 382, 384, 323, 336, 148, 149 of the IPC and Section 3 of the SC/ST Act at Moga on May 13, 2009, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the FIR registered against him.

*An FIR under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC was lodged against Jain and his aide Harnek Singh Ramuwala during the panchayat elections on May 26, 2008, at the Mehna police station on the complaint of one Guriqbal Singh.