Moga August 4:
The court of Lakshman Singh at Ferozepur has reserved its decision on the application of the police seeking permission for reinvestigation into the Rs 8-crore paddy scam, which was detected in the border district in December last year.
The police had filed an application in this court on the directions of the IG Bathinda zone, which came up for hearing on Monday, but the court did not take any decision on it till evening. The court has now fixed August 6 as the next date of hearing on the application. The IG after having found in an inquiry that the investigation into the scam was full of numerous flaws took the decision to seek reinvestigation.
The Ferozepur police had failed to recover the missing 1,92,973 bags of paddy, which could have been sold in Moga, Faridkot and Ferozepur districts as suspected by some officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department. Meanwhile, it was learnt from sources close to the Chief Minister that senior IAS officer SP Singh, a former secretary of the Food and Civil Supplies Department who retired on July 29, may be nominated as Chairman of PUNSUP, a state-owned foodgrain purchase agency.
The paddy scam took place during SP Singh’s tenure as secretary and the paddy stored in Noor Rice Mill, belonging to PUNSUP, went missing just a few days after allocation. SP Singh first recommended an inquiry by the Vigilance Bureau and then went for the crime branch of the police but none of these agencies investigated the case. The investigation remained with the Ferozepur police that failed to recover the missing paddy for reasons best known to it.
An officer of the Food and Civil Supplies Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, feared that if SP Singh was nominated as the chairman of PUNSUP, further investigation into the paddy scam could affect the recovery of paddy.