There has been a new twist in the fake guava orchard scam in Mohali, Punjab. Five days ago, the vigilance arrested Sukhdev Singh, the accused who had taken compensation of Rs 12 crore fraudulently. Now the accused has filed a bail application in the Mohali District Court to escape the prison bars. The accused has deposited DDs of about two crore 40 lakh 96 thousand. He has said that this amount is due from his side.
However, the court has reserved the decision. This scam took place in the year 2016-17. So far, a total of 7 government employees and 16 common people have been arrested in this case. At the same time, 86 crores have been deposited in the government account by the accused. With the recovery of Rs 12 crore from this accused, the compensation recovery will reach Rs 100 crore.
This is how the story of the fake orchard was created
During the process of land acquisition for the Aerotropolis Project in Mohali, accused Sukhdev Singh had purchased 3 Kanal 16 Marla land in village Bakarpur with the intention of illegally getting more compensation by claiming to have a fake guava orchard. After this, he conspired with the main accused Bhupinder Singh, a resident of village Bakarpur, to show that an old guava orchard was already present on this acquired land.
He connived with the concerned Horticulture Development Officer to fraudulently prove the trees to be more than three years old and eligible in the category of fruit-bearing trees during their evaluation.
Even a fake registrar was prepared
There was an agreement between Sukhdev Singh and Bhupinder Singh, under which Sukhdev Singh would bear all the expenses including bribing the employees, while Bhupinder Singh would keep two-thirds of the compensation fraudulently obtained from the Land Acquisition Collector (LAC), Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) through bribery and his influence.
The original Khasra Girdawari Mal Register (2016-2021) of village Bakarpur was destroyed so that the fraud could not be detected and a new fake Khasra Girdawari Register was prepared in 2019. Bhupinder Singh, in collusion with Mal Patwari Bachittar Singh, manipulated the land records to prove the existence of ripe guava orchards. Sukhdev Singh and his wife Harbinder Kaur then fraudulently obtained Rs 2,40,96,442 and Rs 9,57,86,642 respectively from GMADA.
