Before the assembly elections 2027, many big faces of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s government are on the radar of central agencies, Cabinet Minister Sanjeev Arora arrested by ED
SNPNEWS.IN News (Gurmail Kamboj): Central and state governments often use agencies to put pressure on their opponents to protect their interests. After Raghav Chadha and 5 other Rajya Sabha members left AAP and joined BJP, the FIR against Sandeep Pathak by Punjab Police and took action against Rajinder Gupta’s Barnala Trident factory by the Pollution Control Board. After these incidents ED took action against Mohali’s builders (Close to the Chief Minister’s OSD and Aman Arora), the arrest of Cabinet Minister Sanjeev Arora by the central agency ED in the fake GST billing and money laundering case is part of this episode.
A team of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the house of Punjab Cabinet Minister Sanjeev Arora in Chandigarh this morning. The team reached the minister’s residence in Sector 2 in about 20 vehicles and the officers surrounded the entire house. A large number of CRPF personnel were deployed for security.
Today’s operation by the ED is the third raid on Minister Arora during which he is reported to have been arrested. Earlier, the ED had raided Minister Arora on April 17. The ED had raided several of his residences and business premises for investigation.
READ IT: Mohali: ED Raids; CM’s OSD and Minister Aman Arora in the Spotlight
The ED has arrested Punjab Cabinet Minister Sanjeev Arora in an alleged export scam of Rs 157.12 crore and fake GST invoices. The operation followed raids at about 16-17 locations including his official residence in Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Gurugram.
According to the ED, the case has been registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). It is alleged that companies related to Arora prepared fake bills for mobile phones worth over Rs 100 crore through fake firms in Delhi. These fake bills were used to wrongly claim ITC refunds and duty drawback from the government. The investigation has suspected that about Rs 102.50 crore was diverted to India through shell companies in Dubai (UAE).
It is also alleged that industrial plots were used for housing projects against the rules, causing loss to the government exchequer. Apart from this, ED is investigating the illegal conversion of cheap government land allotted for industrial purposes in Ludhiana, Mohali into residential and commercial projects and the personal gain of crores of rupees through this conversion (CLU), which caused a huge loss to the government exchequer.
ED is currently in the process of obtaining the remand of Sanjeev Arora by producing him in the court after arresting Arora so that more details of this financial transaction can be uncovered.