Ex-min booked for ₹14 cr EDC licence fee default

Ludhiana: The Sadar police on Wednesday booked Punjab’s former minister Jagdish Singh Garcha of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for not paying his EDC (engineering design and construction) licence fee and its penal interest totalling Rs 14.33 crore to the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (Glada).The FIR (first-information report) against Garcha is based on a complaint that Glada’s additional chief administrator has filed, claiming that the former minister had developed a sold a colony without paying its licence fee to the authority. Glada had licenced Garcha’s company GS Township under the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act (PAPRA), 1995, on December 24, 2010, to build Crown Town colony on almost 70 acres at Lalton Kalan. The licence was valid until December 23, 2013, but Garcha’s real-estate company never renewed it. It rather accrued a huge EDC license fee and penal interest despite reminders.After this FIR was lodged under Section 36 (1) of PAPRA, the former minister’s son, Harjinder Singh Garcha, claimed that his family had a joint venture agreement with Delhi’s Earth Infrastructure to develop that colony when an economic offences wing (EOW) action against that partner concern had compelled Ludhiana’s deputy commissioner of those times to ban it from buying or selling plots in that area.Since Garcha’s family was in a joint venture with Earth infrastructure, the ban affected it also.Jagdish Singh Garcha, 88, a two-time MLA from Kila Raipur, acknowledged that Glada had sent him reminders for depositing license fee and other charges, but claimed that his family had told the authority to take part payment from its Delhi partner. While the company challenged the ban on sale and purchase of those plots in the court, Glada filed a complaint against the Garchas.Garcha was Punjab’s minister for technical education in the SAD government from 1997 to 2002. He was close to late former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Ludhiana Sadar’s station house officer (SHO) inspector Gurpreet Singh said: “Police have registered this case based on a careful preliminary inquiry.”