PSEB loan: HC orders CBI probe
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 9
Nearly three years after the PSEB raised a loan of Rs 300 crore for infrastructure development works through an arranger after paying a commission of Rs 1.62 crore, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today ordered a probe by the CBI.

Acting on a petition filed in public interest by advocate HC Arora, the Bench of Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia ordered: “The Director, CBI, shall order registration of preliminary inquiry into the allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of the public servants, including the bank officials and the officials of the board.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Ahluwalia asserted: “The inquiry may be assigned by the Director, CBI, to any officer of the rank of Joint Director or DIG, with expertise in investigating banking, commercial and financial frauds.

In case the preliminary inquiry reveals the commission of a cognisable offence, a regular case be registered and investigated, and thereafter, taken to its logical conclusion”

In the detailed order, Justice Ahluwalia observed: “Whether a middleman, called a loan arranger and payment of the commission was required or not? Whether Rs 1.62 crore, the amount of commission, was a booty shared by the employees of the bank and the board….all these issues are important, especially in the context that a few days before the deal was finalised towards the end of August 2005, the bank had refused to process the request of the board. But when a loan arranger was associated, the loan was cleared immediately.”

Justice Ahluwalia observed: “Whether the agreement of the Board to give 0.49 per cent commission to the loan arranger was a magical wand which led to sanction of the loan within 72 hours for which the bank had earlier refused?

The matter would have remained under the carpet and would not have surfaced, if for compliance of statutory requirements in March 2008 in the session of Punjab Legislative Assembly, on the floor of the Vidhan Sabha, the report of Controller and Auditor-General of India (commercial) had not been laid.