The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Friday, November 6, that its Jalandhar Zonal Office conducted search operations at 14 locations in Punjab and Chandigarh on November 2 and 3 in a money-laundering investigation against former Punjab Industries and Commerce Minister Sunder Sham Arora, his son Parteek Arora and their aides, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

Source: IANS, via The Freedom Press

The searches themselves were independently reported on November 2 by multiple outlets, including India Today and Hindustan Times reporting carried by other platforms, which described ED teams at Arora's Hoshiarpur residence and at premises linked to his son and business associates in a probe tied to alleged irregularities in Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) plot allotments. Friday's statement is the first official account of the operation's full scope and of what was seized.

What the ED says it seized

The search operations resulted in the recovery and seizure of mobile phones, incriminating documents, property documents, records relating to PSIEC plots and digital devices, and the freezing of bank lockers, the ED said. The premises searched included Arora's residential premises at Hoshiarpur, Shivam Hospital in Hoshiarpur, and premises linked to SRG Builders and Promoters Private Limited, GRG Developers and Promoters LLP and Gulmohar Township India Private Limited, and their promoters, directors and associates, in Chandigarh and Mohali, according to the statement.

The Mohali plot allegation

The ED alleged that Arora, during his tenure as industries minister from March 2017 to September 2021, had direct control over the functioning of PSIEC, extended undue favours to private real estate players in the transfer of high-value PSIEC industrial plots and, in return, acquired stakes in real estate entities in the name of his son Parteek Arora. These are the agency's allegations, not findings of any court.

Industrial Plot A-32 at Phase 8 in Mohali, originally allotted by PSIEC to JCT Electronics, which is now bankrupt, was transferred to GRG Developers and Promoters LLP for Rs 90.56 crore through an auction conducted by ARCIL in February 2020, the ED said. Although PSIEC was entitled to 50 per cent of the sale value as unearned increase, besides enhanced land cost and transfer fee under the lease deed, those dues were never fully paid to PSIEC, the agency alleged. It further alleged that even after the tripartite agreement between PSIEC, ARCIL and GRG was cancelled in August 2021, no steps were taken to cancel the lease deed or resume the plot, that Arora approved proposals for post-facto approvals regarding the calculation of unearned increase and enhanced fees, and that bank records show Arora, through his son Parteek Arora, also invested in the purchase of the said plot.

The cases behind the probe

The ED said its investigation was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, against Arora over allegedly amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. The agency also recalled its allegation that Arora offered a bribe of Rs 1 crore to a senior Vigilance Bureau officer to settle enquiries pending against him and was arrested on October 15, 2022, at Zirakpur while allegedly handing over Rs 50 lakh in cash as an advance payment — an allegation Arora has denied in that case, which remains pending.

The IANS report of Friday's statement carried no response from Arora or from the Congress. No arrest arising from the November 2-3 searches was reported in the statement. What the agency does next with the seized records — and whether it summons or charges anyone in the money-laundering case — has not been announced.