Punjab: 14 misappropriated paddy wagons: VB case against 4 partners of rice mill

The Punjab vigilance bureau has registered an FIR against four the partners of a rice mill in Bhawanigarh of Sangrur district for allegedly misappropriating 14 wagons of paddy and causing a loss to the state govt.The vigilance bureau had conducted an investigation against the rice mill, Singla Food Products, based on a letter from the managing director of Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation (PUNSUP). These rice millers had signed an agreement with PUNSUP, a state procurement authority, for storage of paddy and rice milling during 2011-12.

The district controller, food and civil supplies and consumer affairs (DFSC) department, Sangrur had sent a complaint letter to the then district manager of PUNSUP at Sangrur to conduct an inquiry against the mill for misappropriation of paddy.

During physical inspection of Singla Food Products and Singla Agro Mill, Bhawanigarh, conducted jointly by the then PUNSUP deputy manager (storage) Jaspal Sharma and then DFSC Anjuman Bhaskar, it had came to light that there was a shortage of 14 wagons of paddy in Singla Food Products.

The bureau claimed to have found that owner of this rice mill had produced a fake certificate to the inspecting team issued by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials posted at that time at a godown in Nabha to take undue advantage of missing bags of rice, to which FCI officials had submitted that the certificate had their bogus signatures.

Therefore, the bureau, based on this investigation report, registered a criminal case against the four partners of Singla Food Products — Pawan Kumar, Lilavati, Manju Singla and Sameera Singla – for criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy at vigilance bureau police station, economic offences wing, Ludhiana range.

This article has been republished from The Times of India