Ropar court refuses to release car used by ex-MLA Sandoa

Ropar, June 5

A local court has refused to release an Innova car used by former Ropar MLA Amarjit Singh Sandoa after it was bought by his father-in-law Mohan Singh allegedly with tainted money of the forestland scam.

Dismissing the application for “supardari” of the car filed by Mohan Singh, the Additional Sessions Judge, in his order on May 30, observed that as per the police report, the applicant had purchased the vehicle from the embezzled amount and the case was still under investigation.

The Punjab State Forest Corporation had floated a tender on May 29, 2019, to buy land for compensatory afforestation for which SGPC member Daljit Singh Bhinder and his brother Amarinder Singh Bhinder offered their land at Rs 9,90,000 per acre at Karura village near Nurpur Bedi.

Interestingly, the collector rate of the land in the area was fixed at a mere Rs 90,000 per acre. Despite this, department officials agreed to purchase 54 acres and 8 marla from the sellers at the price demanded by them.

On June 28 last year, the Nurpur Bedi police had booked the Bhinder brothers in the case. In August, the Vigilance Bureau (VB) had arrested Naib Tehsildar Raghbir Singh, posted at Anandpur Sahib, in the case while four Indian Forest Service officers Amit Mishra, Amit Chauhan, Geetanjali and Yog Raj Rathore were chargesheeted.

A probe by the VB had revealed that one of the suspects in the land scam made the payment for the car, which was owned by Sandoa’s father-in-law Mohan Singh. An amount of nearly Rs 19 lakh was credited into the account of the car dealer in October 2020.

Jalandhar resident Barinder Kumar, who was found to be “involved” in the scam during the investigation, had made the payment for the car. Claiming innocence in the case, Sandoa had alleged that his political rivals had hatched a conspiracy to defame him. The Innova was seized by police on September 2.