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A Ludhiana court on Monday issued summons to former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh and 34 others in the multi-crore Ludhiana City Centre scam in which the Punjab Vigilance Bureau had recently filed a chargesheet against 36 accused.
District sessions judge G K Rai issued summons for January 10 to Amarinder Singh and 34 others. No summon was issued against former Chairman of Ludhiana Improvement Trust P S Sibia, who is absconding.
Amarinder and others have been charged under various sections of the IPC relating to criminal breach of trust (409), cheating (420), forgery (465), forgery of valuable security (467), forgery for purpose of cheating (468), and using as genuine a forged document (471), criminal conspiracy (120-B) besides under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The PVB had on December 12 filed a 106-page chargesheet against Amarinder Singh, his son and son-in-law Raninder Singh and Raminder Singh respectively, former Local Bodies Minister Jagjit Singh, officials of Ludhiana Improvement Trust and of Today Homes, a Delhi based company which was to execute the project.
The Vigilance Bureau, in its FIR, had accused the former chief minister of violating all norms in patronising and abetting the dilution of terms and conditions for favouring a particular party in executing the project.
The ruling Akali Dal had charged Amarinder Singh with colluding with a developer in the allotment of the Rs 3,000 crore project being developed by Ludhiana Improvement Trust at Ludhiana.
The former chief minister and others were booked by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on March 24 for alleged corruption and cheating in connection with the scam. PVB officials had interrogated Amarinder Singh, his son and son-in-law, Jagjit Singh and others on a number of times in connection with the case.
Though Amarinder's wife Preneet Kaur was not named as a suspect, the Lok Sabha MP from Patiala had secured bail from the Punjab and Haryana high court. Former state Congress President H S Hanspal and former advisor of Amarinder Singh B I S Chahal were also named as suspects during the initial investigations, but their names were later dropped.
Amarinder Singh has earlier denied the allegation of irregularities in the LCC project, saying the case was registered against him by the Badal government due to political vendetta.