Chandigarh May 15 : The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) during its ongoing campaign against corruption in the state, on Monday arrested Satish Bansal, resident of Vishal Nagar, Bathinda who is accused in the Guava tree compensation scam happened in village Bakarpur, SAS Nagar district.
Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the state VB said accused Satish Bansal was a partner in the partnership firm ‘Aggarwal Steel Industries’ along with Chanchal Kumar and his wife Praveen Lata, resident of Bathinda. In this case Parveen Lata and Mukesh Jindal, brother of Chanchal Kumar, both are accused and behind the bars as an accused.
He further informed that Aggarwal Steel Industries through Satish Bansal, Praveen Lata and Des Raj, father of Mukesh Jindal, purchased 3 acres of land in equal shares at Village Bakarpur in February 2018.
After purchasing the said land they planted Guava plants on this land as they were well aware that this land was under acquisition. The said accused in connivance with concerned officials of Revenue department, horticultural department and GMADA, they get crores of rupees as wrongful compensation by showing the saplings to be planted since 2016.
The spokesperson further said with the active association of mastermind Bhupinder Singh, Mukesh Jindal and others, Satish Bansal claimed and received a compensation of Rs 1.54 crores for the plants planted in his 12 kanal 13 marla land, whereas, his firm was owner of only 8 kanals.
Moreover, land acquisition officer, GMADA had issued compensation of Guava plants on the basis of self claimed possession of the land/orchard to the above said owners including Satish Bansal, whereas, most of the land has joint ownership and partition/division of shares were not done amongst the co-owners. Further investigation in this case was under progress, he added.
Two bail applications dismissed
In this compensation scam the local court has dismissed anticipatory bail applications filed by accused Ms. Vaishali, horticulture development officer and Gurpreet Kaur, accused beneficiary.