Chandigarh, October 19
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab announced that to get justice to the victims related to Pearls scam, fraud and other chit fund scams; not only will their demands be included in the party’s election manifesto, but will also get them justice after coming to power. On Tuesday, the state committee of the victims from various districts of the state, who were victims of conspiracy by the PACL (Pearls) company; met senior AAP leaders and MLAs Kulwant Singh Pandori, Manjit Singh Bilaspur and Amarjit Singh Sandoa at the party headquarters here.
Demanding justice in the case, the members of the state committee submitted a memorandum to the AAP, appealing to get back the hard-earned money of many investors of Punjab. Kulwant Singh Pandori said that if the intentions and policies of the governments were clear, then the victims would have got justice. “But it is the government who colluded with the thieves, due to which the victims are forced to stumble,” he added. Pandori said on the formation of the AAP government in Punjab, priority will be given to the victims of Pearls scam and other chit fund scams with property of the fraudsters will be auctioned and every penny of the victims will be returned along with interest.
The AAP also announced setting up of a coordination committee based on MLAs with the victims, which would work extensively to bring justice to the investors of the company. During this, MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan was also present. The members of the State Committee said that the PACL (Pearls) company, which was running since 1983, used to get people to invest money in the name of RD and FD under the guise of real estate. About 25 lakh people of Punjab have invested about Rs 8,000 crore in the company. The State Committee said that the Pearls Company Ltd has about 9,000 acres of land in Punjab. They said that the Supreme Court had constituted a committee headed by Justice RM Lodha (retired) and directed them to take possession of all the properties of PACL Company across the country and return the money earned by selling them to the investors.
Along with this, on February 2, 2016, the status report of the case was also asked to be presented in the Supreme Court. But even after a lapse of nearly five years, not a single penny was returned to the investors. At the time of giving the memorandum to the AAP MLAs, the members of the state committee of different districts of Punjab, Balwant Singh Bhai Roopa, Mandeep Singh Kokri Kalan, Amandeep Singh Bhotna, Karamjit Singh Gadda, Tarsem Khan Mansa, Sukhpal Singh Alisher, Gurtej Singh Mansa, Navrang Singh Mansa, Paramjit Singh Kaler, Rajinder Singh Gogi among others were present.
They said that the Badal government took crores of rupees from Pearls Company in the name of sponsorship during the World Kabaddi Cup. At the same time, in the year 2017, before the formation of the government, former Congress Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had promised to the investors of Pearls to get back their money after the formation of the government in the press conference held at Pearls Company’s property in Pearls City Bathinda. But after the formation of the Congress government, agriculture was being done by occupying the land by mafia in Mansa, Bathinda, Mullanpur, Ludhiana, Garhshankar, etc, under the patronage of the Congress ministers and MLAs, on fertile land from the said property purchased with the company’s money; out of which the Congress ministers and MLAs of Congress are taking a big share.
