2015 graft case: Charges framed against former Faridkot DTO

FARIDKOT: A court on Friday framed charges against former Faridkot district transport officer Nachattar Singh Brar and two transport department employees in a 2015 corruption case.

Additional district and sessions judge Harbans Singh Lekhi ordered that charges be framed under Sections 420 (cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 465 (forgery) and 468 of the IPC and Section 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act against Brar, clerk Amarjeet Singh and junior assistant Mehar Singh.

The court also directed the state vigilance bureau to present the prosecution witnesses on October 18. A case was registered in January 2015 after reports of a scam surfaced in the allotment of vanity numbers and illegal vehicle registration in Faridkot.

The vigilance bureau filed a chargesheet against the DTO and two transport employees in the court on March 18, 2017.

During checking of record from November 28 to December 2, 2014, the vigilance bureau found that 5,250 vehicles from other states, including UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal , Delhi and Chandigarh, were illegally registered in Punjab during Brar’s tenure.

In several cases, the VB found that the vehicles were registered without seeking the mandatory no-objection certificates (NOCS) from various stakeholders. An audit of fee deposits also revealed that in the transfer of these 5,250 vehicles, a loss of ₹7.57 crore was caused to the state exchequer.