Addl CS appears as witness in court

EX-MINISTER ASHU HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF THREATENING THE COMPLAINANT WHEN THE CLU SCAM SURFACED IN 2019

HARASSMENT COMPLAINT AGAINST ASHU

LUDHIANA : Additional chief secretary to Punjab CM, A Venu Prasad, appeared before a Ludhiana court on Wednesday as a witness in the alleged harassment case related to the inquiry into the change of land use (CLU) scam against former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu. Besides, another IAS officer, Karnesh Kumar, who was the director, local bodies in 2019, when the scam surfaced, also recorded his statements in the court today. Prasad was posted as the principal secretary to the then local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu during the Congress government’s regime in 2019.

Ashu has been accused of threatening the complainant, Balwinder Singh Sekhon, a suspended DSP with the municipal corporation when the CLU scam surfaced in 2019. The complainant alleged that Ashu called and threatened him while he was in the process of conducting an inquiry into the case.

While recording his statements today, Venu Prasad stated that the signatures on the file could be his but he cannot verify the contents till the original file was not shown to him.

Balwinder Singh Sekhon said, “Both the officers said they cannot comment on the photocopy of the file.” It has been alleged that the original file of the inquiry into the CLU scam of 2018 was sent to the then local bodies minister Navjot Sindh Sidhu through then-principal secretary Venu Prasad on April 10, 2019, and this file was never received back.

Later, on the directions of the principal secretary, the file was reconstructed by retrieving data from the computer.