ED raids ex-Punjab minister Sunder Sham Arora 8 days after BJP’s PACL complaint

Chandigarh. Eight days after a BJP leader asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe the 2020 sale of Punjab’s stake in Punjab Alkalies and Chemicals Limited (PACL), ED officials were at the door of one of the ministers who cleared it.

An ED team reached former industries minister Sunder Sham Arora’s house on Jodha Mal Road in Hoshiarpur at around 5 am on Monday. The officials sealed it off and began a search. Arora was inside. CRPF personnel stood guard.

The agency has not said whether the search is linked to the complaint by Punjab BJP vice-president Dr Subhash Sharma.

“They are from the Enforcement Department, based in Chandigarh,” said the senior Congress leader’s lawyer, advocate HS Saini. He said the team asked for some documents but gave no reason for the search.

The PACL link

Arora was one of three ministers on the cabinet sub-committee formed to sell the state’s 33.49% stake in PACL. The others were Brahm Mohindra and then finance minister Manpreet Badal, now a BJP national vice-president. The cabinet approved the sale in September 2020, and the stake went for ₹40.98 crore.

Sharma’s October 25 letter to the ED Director names no one. “Whosoever is the culprit should be investigated thoroughly,” he told Punjab Standard last week.

Arora had said in 2023 that the panel was told PACL was running heavy losses. Sharma’s letter cites profits of ₹55.86 crore in 2018-19 and ₹8.80 crore in 2019-20.

JCT land case already on ED’s file

The ED is separately probing land deals from Arora’s term as minister. Last week, it arrested Jaswinder Singh Randhawa, a former general manager of the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC). The case concerns the sale of 31 acres of liquidated JCT Electronics’ land in Mohali to a private realtor, which allegedly cost the state over ₹100 crore.

Agencies at his door before

Arora has faced agency action for four years. The Vigilance Bureau arrested him in October 2022, alleging he offered an AIG ₹1 crore to settle an inquiry. That case is pending. A separate Vigilance FIR over a Mohali township plot was quashed by the high court, which said the bureau had misused its powers.

In January this year, Income Tax officials searched the same house for about 62 hours. Arora said then that the action concerned his son’s property business and nothing illegal was found.

Arora has not commented on Monday’s search, which was still on in the late morning.