New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Monday arrested Congress leader and former Punjab cabinet minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot in connection with an alleged forest scam.
He was called to the agency’s Jalandhar office for questioning, where he was taken into custody as part of a money laundering probe, ED sources told ThePrint.
The arrest comes two months after the ED raided 14 locations in connection with the case, including the properties of Dharamsot and another party leader, Sangat Singh Gilzian.
Dharamsot was the minister in charge of the forest department in the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab, while Gilzian was given the post when Charanjit Singh Channi took over the reins of the state in 2021. The state was subsequently wrested from the Congress by the AAP.
The ED probe stems from a case filed by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act for multiple irregularities in the forest department, such as alleged payment of bribes to ministers and officers for permits to cut Khair trees, specific posting of certain officials as well as issuance of a no-objection certificate from the department.
“During the search operations, various incriminating documents, mobile phones/digital devices, etc. were seized which, prima-facie, reveal suspicious transactions involving persons who are under investigation under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act,” the ED had said in a statement post the November raids.
The vigilance bureau, in its charge sheet filed in the forest scam case, has alleged that Dharamsot got “Rs 500 for felling of each Khair tree by a private contractor named Harmohinder, who got the permit to cut a total of 7,000 trees over five years”.
Additionally, Dharamsot received between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 20 lakh for transfer of officials and also set up a mechanism for bribery, according to the charge sheet.
Dharamsot was first arrested by the vigilance bureau in June 2022 in an alleged corruption case but got bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The bureau arrested Dharamsot again in February last year in another case related to disproportionate assets, in which too he later got bail.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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