The Enforcement Directorate recently conducted raids against two former Punjab forest ministers and Congress leaders Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and Sangat Singh Giljian and others in relation to an alleged forest-scam linked money laundering investigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Issuing a statement on Friday, the Enforcement Directorate said that its investigation pertains to charges of bribery in the state forest department against the issuance of a permit for tree felling and for transfer and posting in the department, among some other allegations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ED raids were carried out on November 30 in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi at the residential premises of Dharamsot, Giljian, their associates, forest officers and some private individuals. The agency reportedly searched fourteen locations under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress leader Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, has been a five-time MLA and he was arrested earlier this year by the Punjab Vigilance bureau as part of a case linked to alleged possession of disproportionate assets. In his three-year tenure as forest minister, Dharamsot collected \u20b91 crore in lieu of issuance of permits for cutting khair trees through his OSD. Sangat Singh Giljian has been an MLA from the Urmar seat in Hoshiarpur district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Enforcement Directorate said that the money laundering case was filed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and stems from an FIR of the Punjab Vigilance Bureau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nodal agency mentioned that the first information report pertains to alleged irregularities in the forest department and allegations of taking bribes by the concerned ministers and officers of the department against the issuance of permits for felling of Khair trees, transfer\/posting in the department, issuance of NOC from the department and purchase of tree guards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, the Enforcement Directorate asserted that during the search operations, various incriminating documents, mobile phones\/digital devices have been seized which, prima facie, reveal suspicious transactions involving persons who are under investigation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Enforcement Directorate asserted that during the search operations, various incriminating documents, mobile phones\/digital devices have been seized<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":495204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497,125714],"tags":[111,142696,753],"yst_prominent_words":[],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2023\/12\/02142612\/images-81-1.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495202"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=495202"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=495202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}