Panel verifies stock in godowns of rice miller accused of cheating PNB

AMRITSAR: A three-member team comprising officials of the food and civil supplies department, Markfed and the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation (PSWC) physically verified the stock of rice mills on Thursday from in case of siphoning off rice bags. The inspection was conducted at

Veeru Mal Mulakhraj Jain

mill in Jandiala Guru near Amritsar.

Executive magistrate Ajay Sharma said that the three-member team including, additional director of food and civil supplies Amarjit Singh, Sunil Puri of Markfed and deputy general manager (DGM) of PSWC Amandeep Singh did physical verification of Gulshan Godown, Rajpal Complex, Sajnay Shah Complex and Anuradha Jain Complex. “The inventory report is being finalized,” he said.

After the case of siphoning of around 1.3 lakh paddy bags came to light, chief minister Amarinder Singh had not only suspended the Amritsar district food and civil supplies controller A P Singh but also marked a vigilance probe into the alleged Rs 200 crore scam that hit the Punjab National Bank branch in Jandiala Guru.

Counsel for PNB, Ravi Mahajan, said that the bank had suffered a loss of around Rs 190 crore. The bank had 16 acres of land and several other properties of Jain as collateral but that would be insufficient to cover the amount of losses incurred to bank.

Mahajan said that people living in the vicinity of mill saw the Jain family fleeing in two cars on April 1. Sources said that the Jain family could have absconded to Canada as some of Gulshan’s family members had already taken permanent residency of Canada. “Even if they had gone abroad we will seek their repatriation,” said the counsel.

According to reports 8.78 lakh bags of paddy was sent to mill for shelling, which delivered only 3.6 lakh bags. As many as 5.18 lakh paddy bags were not delivered.

Mahajan said he suspected that there had been billing fraud in the case. Before fleeing, Jains had deposited Rs 1.5 lakh on March 31, he said.

At the time of filing of this news report, police were in process of registration of an FIR against the Jain family and others.


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