VB: Father, son used defunct company to launder funds

VB: Father, son used defunct company to launder fundsChitleen K SethiTribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 11The Vigilance Bureau, Punjab, has booked former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his son Raninder Singh in a fresh case of corruption and cheating.
The bureau has discovered the existence of a defunct company being run by the father-son duo since the 1970s, which was revived in 2002 when Amarinder became the Chief Minister. This company was then allegedly used to route and launder bribe money, evade income tax and obtain “wrongful gain” worth crores from a nationalised bank.
The names of Omaxe Construction Company, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and a Ludhiana-based businessman Naresh Malhotra also figure in the FIR registered this evening following an inquiry report filed by Sandeep Goel, SSP, Vigilance Bureau, Patiala .
The company Teg Masrado, a unit for canning and exporting mushrooms, was started by the father-son team in 1975. Amarinder Singh is the managing director of the company while Raninder Singh is the joint director. The company’s registered office is at Moti Bagh, Patiala.
The company remained in the red for most of the period of its existence — running a liability of Rs 14 crore in 2002 — but saw a flurry of activity after it collaborated with a host of Kolkata-based companies from whom it gathered crores of “share application money”.
A physical crosscheck on these companies conducted by the bureau revealed that these companies had offices in ramshackle cubicles in Kolkata and some of the persons shown as directors of these companies were poor street dwellers.
The FIR lodged by the bureau states that one such director Kamal Barik was a street vendor and sold clothes on a footpath in Howrah.
The VB has listed seven such companies which gave application money worth Rs 3.3 crore for shares of Teg Masrado during 2005-06. VB officials added that other than Amarinder’s company, these mere “postal address” outfits were used by scores of politicians and businessmen across India to launder ill-gotten wealth.
The crores pumped into Teg Masrado as share money was then given as “advance” to Amarinder Singh and used to set up a shooting range in village Main Patiala, buying cars and financing expensive travels.
The FIR also states that in 2006, Amarinder used his influence to settle his company’s dues with the Bank of Baroda. The company owed the bank Rs 14 crore but this huge liability was settled in active connivance of the bank officials for Rs 1.3 crore. This payment was made by Malhotra who raised a loan from Indian Overseas Bank, Patiala, where the company had its accounts.