Mohali: ED files fresh chargesheet against 16 more accused in guava orchard scam
The 11,500-page chargesheet was submitted in the court of additional sessions judge Hardip Singh, with the matter now listed for hearing on September 20
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a fresh chargesheet against 16 more accused in the multi-crore guava orchard scam.
The 11,500-page chargesheet was submitted in the court of additional sessions judge Hardip Singh, with the matter now listed for hearing on September 20. With this, the number of people facing prosecution in the case has risen to 96.
This comes a day after ED Jalandhar provisionally attached properties worth ₹9.87 crore belonging to the accused, including alleged mastermind Bhupinder Singh, businessman Vikas Bhandari, his wife Ritika Bhandari, property dealer Karam Singh, and his brother Gurdeep Singh under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The guava orchard scam is among Mohali’s biggest land acquisition frauds, in which private landowners, property dealers, and officials of the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA), revenue, and horticulture departments allegedly acted in collusion to get higher compensation. Others named in the chargesheet include businessman Vishal Bhandari, industrialist Mukesh Jindal, advocate Rohit Sharma and his wife Bharti, property dealer Binder Singh, and GMADA’s then land acquisition officer Jagdish Singh Johal. GMADA patwaris Bachittar Singh, Surinder Paul Singh, and Surinder Pal Singh, along with horticulture development officer Jaspreet Singh Sidhu and Vaishali have also been booked.
According to the ED, accused Satish Bansal, a partner in Aggarwal Steel Industries, had purchased three acres in Bakarpur village in 2018, along with his associates, and planted guava saplings on it despite the land being under acquisition. Officials allegedly manipulated records to show the trees as planted since 2016, so as to get higher compensation.
The chargesheet reveals that Bansal, along with the backing of Bhupinder Singh and Mukesh Jindal, fraudulently claimed ₹1.54 crore for orchards on land far exceeding his legal share. Compensation was allegedly released on “self-claimed possession” without verifying co-ownership or partition.
