India News | Punjab Vigilance Bureau Makes Arrest in Pearl Group Case
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested a director of the Pearls Agrotech Corporation Limited on the charge of being appointed to the post in an illegal manner, officials said.
Chandigarh, Sep 5 (PTI) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested a director of the Pearls Agrotech Corporation Limited on the charge of being appointed to the post in an illegal manner, officials said.
Pearl Group had allegedly cheated several people in various parts of the country, including Punjab, by illegally operating different investment schemes, they said.
A special investigation team of the bureau is probing the scam by the group -- chit fund company.
The bureau on Tuesday said Dharmendra Singh Sandhu was illegally appointed as one of the directors of PACL Ltd.
An extraordinary general body meeting (EoGM) of PACL Ltd was shown to have been held on January 1 at its registered office in Jaipur, Rajasthan, which was closed for the last seven to eight years, it said.
Three directors -- Hirdaypal Singh Dhillon, Sandeep Singh Mahal and Dharmendra Singh Sandhu -- were appointed on the basis of forged proceedings of the meeting that never took place, it said.
They also submitted the forged documents to the Registrar of Companies, Jaipur, through Chartered Accountant Jaswinder Singh Dang of Ludhiana and got their names reflected as directors of PACL Ltd on the website of the Ministry of Company Affairs, said the bureau.
Mahal and Dang have already been charge-sheeted in this case and are in judicial custody, said the bureau.
The three unlawfully appointed directors issued notices to different people holding assets of the PACL without taking permission from the Committee constituted by the Supreme Court of India under the Chairmanship of Justice (retd) R M Lodha, and started extorting money from them, said the bureau.
Recently, the Ministry of Company Affairs removed the names of Dhillon, Mahal and Sandhu from the list of directors of PACL Ltd.
The committee under the chairmanship of Justice (retd) Lodha was constituted pursuant to the order of the Supreme Court to sell the properties of PACL Ltd. and use the sale proceeds to refund investors who invested their hard-earned money in the collective investment scheme offered by the company.
During his election campaign, Aam Aadmi Party leader Bhagwant Mann had promised that if his party was voted to power, the hard-earned money of people, who were the victims of the ponzi scam, would be returned by confiscating the assets of chit fund companies.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)