Hoshiarpur scam: ED raids PCS officer's Patiala house

PATIALA: An Enforcement Directorate (ED) squad from Jalandhar zonal office on Wednesday raided the Patiala residence of Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officer

Anand Sagar Sharma

, the prime accused in the multicrore Hoshiarpur land compensation scam.

The team landed at the residence of the officer on Sular Road at 7 am. However, the officer managed to slip out minutes before their arrival. The team under ED assistant director Ajai Singh remained there till around 3:30 pm, questioning the officer's wife and his parents. It was learnt that the ED sleuths prepared an inventory of articles in the house along with cash and gold recovered.

The investigators seized property documents, laptops and mobile phones of the officer and his family members.

The ED team later took Sharma's family members to the branch of a nationalised bank located near Samaina gate, where they got the family vault opened. After spending around one and a half hours there, the team headed for the main branch of the bank at

Sheranwala

gate and accessed more lockers of the Sharma family.

The officer was accused of making extra payments to owners of the land acquired by the NHAI for widening the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur-Mandi National Highway when he was SDM Hoshiarpur, causing a loss of Rs 58 crore to the state exchequer.

Economic offences wing of VB Ludhiana had registered an FIR under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (forgery), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under Prevention of Corruption Act against Sharma and 10 others on February 10, 2017. A total of 103-acre land was acquired on the

Hoshiarpur-Chintpurni

road and the compensation was decided by the officer. The vigilance had alleged that in Khawaspur and Piplanwala villages, the SDM had shown agriculture land as commercial to give financial benefit to some influential persons, including Akali leaders.These beneficiaries had brought this land at throwaway prices from the local farmers before the land acquisition process began.

After being booked in this case, Sharma was transferred to

Gidderbaha

in

Muktsar

district before being suspended by the state government in March 2017. He was granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana high court in August and reinstated as assistant commissioner (general) at Fatehgarh Sahib on September 28.

Girish Bali, ED deputy director, said that following registration of case by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau against Sharma, the ED had also filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in June and started investigations.