SAD demands criminal case be registered against Sukhjinder Randhawa in an Insurance scam
Former minister Bikram Singh Majithia demanded a criminal case be registered against Cooperation minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa for indulging in corruption by breaking all rules and overriding objections of officials to grant a contract to an ineligible insurance company for providing death coverage to department employees against COVID-19 through a single bid tender.
He also asserted that the loss incurred by the State treasury by way of this scam be recovered from the Cooperation minister. Bikram Majithia blew the lid off the entire scam by releasing the entire official file of the case to the media. He said the evidence provided by him proved that this was an open and shut case of corruption. He also exposed the lies uttered by Sukhjinder Randhawa to save himself from being caught out.
Listing out the points which indicated that kickbacks had been received in the case, the SAD leader said the tender process did not follow the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) guidelines. He said even the General Finance Rules, 2017 of the Punjab government stated that procurement from a single source could be made only if the particular firm alone was equipped to deliver the services.
He said Randhawa also overlooked the fact that the Union government, as well as the State government, had issued directives to compensate the next of kin of front line workers laying down their lives in the line of duty during the pandemic. He said the State government had even issued a letter in this context on May 8, three days before the contract was awarded to Go Digit.
Disclosing the machination of the Cooperation Minister, Majithia said the former overruled the objections of his own bid committee which said since it was a case of a single bid it should be re-tendered. He said Randhawa also overruled a second objection which recommended calling for an e-tender as per established norms and allowed a suspect e-mailing process to receive tender documents.
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He said the minister also overruled the objection of the Registrar, Cooperatives who said the tender should be re-tendered because no comparison could be made with the rates of any other company.
-PTC News
