Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrests close aide of jailed Akali leader Bikram Majithia

Chandigarh, Nov 30 (PTI) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has arrested a close associate of jailed Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, officials said on Sunday.

Harpreet Singh Gulati, who is in the liquor trade, was arrested on Saturday, they said. During the probe, the Bureau detected a transaction of Rs 10 crore between Gulati's companies and firms run by the Majithia family, public prosecutor Preet Inderpal Singh said.

Gulati was earlier questioned about the transaction, but he failed to give any satisfactory reply, Singh said.

Gulati was produced before a court in Mohali, which sent him to a six-day vigilance remand, special public prosecutor Ferry Sofat said.

An official spokesperson of the Vigilance Bureau said Majithia, who is presently lodged in the New Nabha jail in Patiala after his arrest in a disproportionate assets case, faces serious allegations of quid pro quo.

After the Akalis came to power in Punjab in 2007, the liquor sector allegedly “faced capture by political interests”, he said in a statement.

Gulati's firms allegedly secured liquor licences at Majithia's instance from 2008 onward, the spokesperson claimed.

“Gulati's firms allegedly paid Rs 4.25 crore (2008-09) and Rs 1.40 crore (2009-10) to Majithia's companies and family, funding a farmhouse at the Sainik Farms in Delhi and other family benefits,” the spokesperson said.

In 2014-15, another Rs 5.49 crore flowed in the same way to repay loans for Majithia-linked group entities, he alleged.

The probe also revealed that these transactions were non-commercial in nature, unrelated to any legitimate business dealings, and routed in the form of unsecured fund transfers/layered advances without any business rationale or justification, the spokesperson said.

The Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on June 25 in the disproportionate assets case allegedly involving the laundering of Rs 540 crore of “drug money”.

On August 22, the Bureau filed a chargesheet in a Mohali court, which ran into more than 40,000 pages.

In the FIR registered against Majithia, the Bureau claimed that preliminary investigations revealed the laundering of more than Rs 540 crore of “drug money” through several channels, allegedly facilitated by the Akali leader.

The FIR stemmed from an ongoing investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police into a 2021 drug case.

In 2021, Majithia was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act based on a 2018 report of the anti-drug STF.

Majithia spent more than five months in Patiala jail before walking out of prison in August 2022 after the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted him bail. PTI CHS ARI