Chandigarh 5 September:- A special committee of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha today indicted former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, two former ministers and a congress leader in a land deal during the previous congress regime.
Besides Amarinder, former cabinet minister- Chaoudhary Jagjit Singh and Raghunath Sahai Puri and former Amritsar Improvement Trust Chairman Jugal kishore Sharma were indicated by a nine-member special committee of the state assembly chaired by Akali Dal MLA Harish Rai Dhanda.
As Dhanda laid the committee’s report in the House, the entire Congress MLAs, including Amarinder and leader of the opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal raised vociferious slogans against the state government and trooped into the well of the house, forcing Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon to adjorn the Assembly for an hour.
Dhanda later told reporters in the press gallery that the special committee has held Amarinder, Puri, Singh and Sharma guilty in exempting 32.10 acres of land of Improvement Trust despite adverse noting by various officers during the previous Congress regime.
"The Connivance of the four in bypassing all norms is very clear," he said, adding it was now upon the wisdom of the House what kind of punishment it gives them "It has been clearly establishment that in the land deal, money has been exchanged putting a loss of Rs. 360 crore on the exchequer of Improvement Trust, he said.
Before the adjournment of the House, the Speaker asked Dhanda to read out the salient features of the report. However, the protesting congressmen did not allow the proceedings of the House to take place.
The committee was constituted to enquire into the legality of exemption granted to land measuring 32.10 acres on the Jalandhar-Amritsar road through a notification on January 12, 2006 out of 188 acres development scheme floated by the Amritsar Improvement
Trust on November 2, 200.
The matter was unanimously raised in the Punjab Assembly on December 18,2007 with regard to the constitution of the committee of the House to enquire into the matter.A motion was unanimously passed in the Punjab Assembly on December 10. 2007 with regard to the constitution of the committee of the house to enquire into the matter.