3 PSPCL officials suspended on graft charge
Shariq Majeed/TNS

Sangrur, January 23
The Chairman of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) today suspended three senior officials of the corporation on corruption charge.

The officials allegedly took bribe from an industrialist from Malerkotla in lieu of giving him a clean chit before the Dispute Settlement Committee (DSC) of PSPCL in a case of power theft.

PSPCL chairman KD Chowdhary suspended, SE Sangrur Harmesh Gupta, XEN Malerkotla Sukhwinder Singh and SDE Malerkotla VK Paika following a preliminary report submitted by a committee formed by him to look into the allegations.

The chairman sent the suspension orders to the three officers on email as well as through a fax from his office in Patiala. The Malerkotla industrialist was found guilty of power theft during a raid last year and a huge penalty was imposed on him.

“The accused had then deposited a challan amount of Rs 5-6 lakh with the dispute settlement committee headed by SE Harmesh Gupta who allegedly in connivance with the XEN, Malerkotla, Sukhwinder Singh, and SDE Malerkotla, VK Paika, took a bribe from the accused to give him clean chit and had refunded the challan amount to him,” said an official.