NRI’s house forcibly demolished to open restobar, alleges kin
Saturday, 05/01/2013
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/nri-s-house-forcibly-demolished-to-open-restobar-alleges-kin/1054918/1
On the day Punjab government’s NRI Sammelan was launched with fanfare and some more promises, the kin of a US-based NRI held a press conference demanding judicial probe into role of NRI affairs Minister Bikramjit Singh Majithia in a land grab case. The NRI’s house allegedly stood on the prime land, now worth over Rs 50 crore, in January 2008 when a similar NRI sammelan was held by the Badal government.
Alleging that ‘The Hub’ restobar, courting controversies since the alleged attack on AIG (Intelligence) SS Mand in December, was grabbed with political patronage, the kin of NRI Hardayal Singh Hundal said Maninderpal Singh alias Sunny Johar (now arrested in the AIG assault case) tampered with documents, including the death registration certificate of the maternal grandmother, who had left the house to her grandchildren, more than three decades ago but also used his political clout to influence the Ludhiana SSP, MC officials and DC and victimise them by slapping false cases.
“After Hundal’s father died in 2005, the house was locked and only opened by their step-mother, Kanwaljit Kaur, when she came to Ludhiana from Canada. In 2008, the house was razed down by by forging documents to show Kanwaljit Kaur as the owner of the ancestral property. A neighbour alerted Hundal when they broke open the house and he sent the power of attorney to me. After a probe, then Ludhiana SDM in 2009 ruled in favour of Hundal and so did then Ludhiana DC Vikas Garg. But in 2010, Garg went back on his own order. Then we filed a civil suit and its ruling went in our favour. But my wife, Ranjana, was implicated in a false case and kept in judical custody for three months,” said Hundal’s brother-in-law, Sukhwinder Singh. The power of attorney was then transferred to Gurbinder Singh, whose wife is an aunt of Hundal. A native of Majithia’s Majitha block in Amritsar, Gurbinder said, “I brought the matter to the notice of Majithia but he said Sunny has done many favours on the Badals. We will get you some reli
ef but not the property.” Johar was allegedly also threatened not to enter Punjab by Sunny who said, “If he can spend lakhs to usurp his property, he could pay another crore to get him killed.”
The kin said they will be moving the Punjab and Haryana High Court after it resumes. Former MLA Sukhpal Khaira, also present at the press conference, said their party demands a judicial probe into the land grab case. “Majithia was seen with Sunny at public gatherings in Ludhiana hours before the AIG’s assault. Sunny could not have grabbed the property on which a civil court had given injunction and financial commissioner revenue had ordered a stay without Majithia’s political patronage or his own stake in the restobar. We have no trust in the Punjab police, so we demand a judicial or CBI probe. Since a fair probe cannot be conducted till Majithia is a minister, he should first resign,” Khaira said.
Congress leader Lally Majithia, who lost to Bikram Majithia, in the January polls, said Sunny and his associates were also named as complainants in the FIR filed against his family by a sarpanch on the behest of Majithia. “Sunny was distributing funds during elections and handling his constituency and now Majithia is disowning him,” he added.
