Mohali Suntec City scam: Ex-Punjab CS Anurag Verma summoned by ED, IAS officer Kanwal Preet Brar re-summoned

PTC News Desk: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned former Punjab Chief Secretary Anurag Verma to appear on August 31 and re-summoned IAS officer Kanwal Preet Brar to appear on August 27 in its ongoing in connection with investigation into alleged scam involving Suntec City and Altus Space Builders Private Limited. Both IAS officers have been asked to appear at ED’s zonal office in Jalandhar on the respective dates.

Verma, a former Punjab chief secretary, who is currently posted as additional chief secretary-cum-financial commissioner (revenue), is the second IAS officer to be summoned by the agency.

Kanwal Preet Brar, who has bene re-summoned on August 27, was earlier interrogated by the central agency for nearly nine hours on August 18.  

Verma, who was then in charge of the Housing and Urban Development Department, said he received the ED summons on Tuesday and had carefully read it.

He said the summons did not clearly state which case he was being called in connection with. However, he said he would appear before the agency and submit all the necessary documents and facts.

Suntec City project under investigation

The ED is investigating the Suntec City real-estate project in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh. The agency alleges that Sehgal, linked to the Indian Cooperative Housing Building Society (ICHBS) Ltd, submitted fake consent letters to the Town and Country Planning Department to get Change of Land Use (CLU) permissions for 108.58 acres of agricultural land.

The land was planned for residential and commercial development. The ED says these CLUs were later used to obtain a project licence from the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) and register the project under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA).