Punjab Minister called up mines chief before auction: Probe report
Rana Gurjit Singh. Rana Gurjit Singh.
PUNJAB MINISTER for Irrigation and Power, Rana Gurjit Singh, called up the state’s Director of Mines before an e-auction of sand mines in May to inquire about the “procedure and process”. This has been revealed in the Justice J S Narang Commission of Inquiry’s report into the auction, which was made public Friday by Leader of Opposition and AAP MLA, Sukhpal Khaira, who accessed it through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
According to the report, Amit Dhaka, Director of Mines, told the commission: “When the auction pursuant to e-auction notice dated May 3, 2013 was scheduled to be held on May 19/20, I received a number of calls from various persons regarding the procedure of auction. This included some of the politicians as well.” The report states that when asked about two mines at Saidpur Khurd and Mehadipur in Nawanshahr district, Dhaka replied that no influence was exerted on him by the minister. But he stated: “However, he did call me up on my telephone and asked for the procedure and process finalised and prescribed for holding the auction.”
According to the report, Rana Gurjit told the commission that he had called up Dhaka to understand the procedure being adopted for holding of e-auction “as some of his persons had inquired from him”.
The one-member commission has stated in its report that any interference by the minister in the auction was not possible as the procedure was controlled and conducted by a computer programme. However, it found that the two successful bidders for the Saidpur Khurd and Mehadipur mines, Amit Bahadur and Kulvinder Paul Singh, both allegedly former employees of firms owned by the Rana family, had violated auction rules.
It found that the two had not deposited the pre-auction amount — processing fee, earnest money and 50 per cent of the bid money — either directly or through their bank accounts as mandatory under rules. It found that the money was deposited on their behalf by two others, Sahil Singla and Sanjit Randhawa — all four were partners in a firm, Rajbir Enterprises.
According to the report, the commission concluded that Bahadur and Kulvinder were “front men” of Singla and Randhawa.
At the auction, Bahadur submitted the highest bid of Rs 26.52 crore for Saidpur Khurd and Kulvinder topped with Rs 9.21 crore for Mehadipur. However, while deposing before the commission, Kulvinder stated that he did not have any experience of sand and gravel mines while Bahadur could not produce any certificate in support of his claim that he had worked in sand mines.
Also, both could not initially tell the commission how many acres comprised one hectare and later said that it was 2.50 acres, the report states. Bahadur said that he did not know how much sand he was entitled to extract from the mine, according to the report.
AAP leader Khaira claimed Friday that Randhawa is the son of a former election agent of Rana Gurjit, and Singla is linked to a firm of Chartered Accountants that deals with the Rana Group of companies.
The Indian Express had reported on May 29 that four days before the e-auction, the government changed the rules to keep the names of the bidders secret.
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