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Chandigarh: The Punjab government has handed over the investigation of the multi-thousand crore pearl scam to the Vigilance Bureau. According to the orders issued by the Punjab government, the Vigilance Bureau will conduct an investigation on the basis of the FIR related to the scam registered in Ferozepur. FIR No. 79 of 2020 of Zira Police Station and FIR No. 1 of 2023 of State Crime Police Station, SAS Nagar have been transferred to the Vigilance Bureau in connection with the pearl scam in district Ferozepur, the government orders said.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau is an independent and specialized agency with a dedicated Economic Offenses Wing to investigate complex economic crimes. Considering the special nature of the investigation required in the Pearl scam and its inter-state implications, the investigation has been transferred to the Vigilance Bureau to conduct a fair and transparent investigation to expose the entire Pearl scam. The Punjab government has instructed the Vigilance Bureau that no one should be spared in this scam and all the evidence should be collected.
According to the information, this investigation has been handed over to the Vigilance Bureau as per the recommendations of the Loda Committee formed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court constituted a committee headed by Justice RM Lodha. This committee had recommended that where people who have invested money on a large scale have been cheated, there should be a special investigation into the matter. After the Sahara Group scam in 2013, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to investigate the Pearl Group.
Meanwhile, the court formed the Loda Committee and gave them the responsibility to sell the property of pearl group and return the money of the investors. The court had given six months time to the Lodha Committee but the committee in its report had said that the pearl group was not cooperating with the probe and was not providing information about the expensive properties, which it had also bought abroad. The Loda Committee had given information in its report that the pearl company should return 60 thousand crores to the people while the liability of the company is 80 thousand crores and the value of the property that has been found is only 7,600 crores.
Another important disclosure in the report was that the company has not bought the land with the 2800 crores it took from the investors to buy the land. All this money is lying with the agents. About 29,000 properties were disclosed to the committee by the company. In the report submitted to the Supreme Court by the Loda Committee, it was stated that out of 27,500 properties of the pearl group, people had shown interest in 4103. Also giving the details of the properties sold so far, the Loda Committee told the court that 941 properties were put up for auction, of which 872 have been sold.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had recently said that the government is thinking of a new strategy to deal with the Pearl scam so that the money of defrauded investors can be returned.
The Pearl Group was accused of a scam of 48 thousand crores. Despite the Supreme Court’s stay, the Pearl Group sold assets worth Rs 1,200 crore. Which was revealed by the special investigation team formed by the Punjab government. The money of 10 lakh people was looted in the scam done by Pearl Gruff. Pearl Group owner Nirmal Singh Bhangu was arrested. In 2016, the Supreme Court banned the sale of all assets of Pearl Group. However, Bhangu had sold properties worth 1200 crores by 2020. This property was in Mumbai, Gurugram, Mohali.
Nirmal Singh Bhangu, the owner of Pearl group, collected money from investors through two companies of the group, pearl’s agrotech corporation limited and pearl golden forest limited. In this, investors were lured that their money would be spent in agriculture, real estate, business development, housing groups, townships and goods building. In return, the investors will be given interest at the rate of 12.5 per cent along with agricultural land as a guarantee.
Apart from this, the company also promised free accidental insurance and tax free maturity amount to the investors. The investors were promised that the investment made in their agriculture would be 4 times, but none of the investments benefited even from Dhela, on the contrary, 5 and a half crore investors have suffered a loss of 60 thousand crores. In this whole scam, CBI arrested 11 people including MD of Pearl Group.
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