ED freezes Rs 4 crore linked to retired PSIEC officials in money laundering case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has frozen bank deposits worth about Rs 4 crore belonging to two retired officials of the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) during searches conducted against them last week in a money laundering case.

The probe relates to alleged illegal allotment of industrial plots by PSIEC’s former chief general manager Surinder Pal Singh and former general manager Jaswinder Singh Randhawa in the names of their relatives, friends and other associates. Unaccounted cash worth Rs 12.15 lakh was seized and Rs 4.01 crore deposits kept in the bank accounts of Singh and Randhawa were frozen, the ED said.

The central agency said in a statement that industrial plots were allotted to persons having “no knowledge” of technical industries. “Fake firms and fake addresses were used by the private persons in the application form while applying for the industrial plots, and through close connections with the PSIEC officials, the industrial plots were allotted to these persons,” the ED claimed.

The possession of the plots was not provided in the stipulated time and used to be delayed for many years and the intermediate time was considered as zero period and allotment dates used to be shifted forward by many years for payment plans with zero interest rates for the intermediate period, it said. The ED claimed that “illegal” allotments were made in exchange for “huge” bribes received directly or indirectly by the officials through cash transactions and “layered” financial arrangements.

Several allotments were made in the names of shell entities and fictitious firms, which were subsequently used to sell the allotted plots at prevailing market rates to third-party outsiders, thereby generating substantial proceeds, it added. The probe found that the plots allotted for establishing industries were bifurcated and diverted for residential/commercial plotting, according to the ED.