THE STATES

A racket in government jobs

Punjab's Vigilance Bureau, investigating the vast assets of Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu, has discovered that the PPSC Chairman auctioned off a number of government jobs.

PRAVEEN SWAMI

THEY call it Choron ki Baraat: a wedding procession of thieves. Disclosures of the assets that Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) Chairman Ravinderpal Singh 'Ravi' Sidhu acquired by auctioning off plum government jobs have been blowing up like the firecrackers favoured at Punjabi weddings.

Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu, when he was produced at the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh.

Investigators have so far found Rs.9.57 crores in cash, Rs.8.99 crores in bank accounts, shares and debentures, and properties that have been conservatively valued at Rs.12.93 crores - not including 200 pairs of matching designer suits and shoes, a collection of vintage whiskies, or the Rs.5-lakh bribe used to entrap the PPSC Chairman. Those who paid Sidhu for the right to join the PPSC party allegedly include key aides of former Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, top politicians, bureaucrats, members of the judiciary and police officers.

Jagman Singh, Sidhu's aide-turned-approver, has provided a graphic account of just how the PPSC Chairman chose candidates for State government jobs. He told Roopnagar Chief Judicial Magistrate Ravinder Singh that Sidhu used to hand over the public service examination question papers to candidates who paid up. "After obtaining the question papers," Jagman Singh said, "I used to hand over these question papers to the candidates sent by Ravi Sidhu to my house at night prior to the day of the examination. Similarly, candidates were sent sometimes to the house of [the] mother of Ravi Sidhu where I used to hand over question papers." For favoured clients, Jagman Singh would home-deliver the question papers.

Candidates now had all night to fill out the answers. Their completed examination papers were stocked in boxes at Sidhu's home, or that of his mother. Then, Jagman Singh said he would "collect the same boxes for their onward transmission to the examiners" at their residence - all the examiners used to collect boxes "Or some examiners from outside used to come to my residence and mark the answer sheets. In each such box there was an envelope containing a list of few candidates bearing their roll numbers along with the specific marks which were to be awarded to them in their respective answer sheets. Ravi Sidhu had given me standing instructions to direct the examiners to observe strictness in giving marks to other candidates." Those who did not pay did not get to play.

Sidhu's charges for this kind of help were steep. Candidates hoping to become Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSPs) were asked for between Rs.75 lakhs and Rs.1 crore before the 2001 examinations. Vigilance Bureau investigators believe that prices rose steadily as the Punjab Assembly elections, which were held earlier this year, approached. "This kind of money had to be shared around," says one investigator "After all, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party alliance wouldn't have put up with Sidhu's activities unless there was something in it for them too." The Punjab government has now cancelled 639 appointments to the Punjab civil service (PCS), the Punjab police, the Punjab judicial service and allied State services. Another 3,346 appointments notified by the SAD-BJP government are to be individually reviewed by the Vigilance Bureau.

EVEN a casual scrutiny of the appointments that were thus made underlines the proposition that the rot went deep. Badal's cook and confidant Kale Singh Dhillon's son Amardeep Singh Dhillon became a DSP last year. Jagman Singh's confessional statement clarifies just how the appointment was made. In late 2001, he delivered a question paper outside Badal's home in Chandigarh. "Outside that house," Jagman Singh said, "I met a boy who came in [a] Gypsy and walked up to my car, which was already parked outside that house, and took away the question [paper] from me and the same was collected by me on the next day early in the morning from outside of that house. Once that candidate left, I asked the security persons about that candidate and I came to know from them that the candidate was the son of a person named 'Kala'. I came to know afterwards that 'Kala' is very close to Mr. Prakash Singh Badal".

Relatives of several SAD luminaries obtained jobs in Punjab government over the last three years. R.P. Singh, who joined the judicial services, is the son of Hardeep Singh Bhamra, Officer on Special Duty to Badal. Union Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's son-in-law Harsuhinder Pal Singh joined the 1999 batch of the PCS. While the SAD figures prominently on this roll, there are also children of senior political figures from other parties who joined the PCS during the same period. PCS officer Sukhpreet Singh Sidhu is, for example, a close relative of the present Minister of State for Public Health, Jasjit Singh Randhawa. As Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has pointed out, the mere fact that relatives of politicians joined the services means little. The overall context of the post-1996 appointments does, however, warrant a serious scrutiny of the process.

ACCORDING to sources in the Vigilance Bureau, even children of influential figures were rarely offered a free ride. A job involving a Rs.40-lakh bribe, for example, might be offered at a quarter of that price to the right candidate. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh himself came to know of Sidhu's activities when the son of one of his personal staff was asked to pay a bribe, even though he had obtained good marks in the examination. Sidhu rarely dealt directly with aspirants and used a wide network of touts. Paramjit Singh Pammi, for example, is alleged to have taken some Rs.54.5 lakhs from two Chandigarh residents to make three appointments. The bulk of this, according to the Vigilance Bureau, was then forwarded to Sidhu. Pammi, however, has denied any wrongdoing, and through his lawyers claims to have been "falsely implicated on behalf of the political leadership".

Randhir Singh Dhira. The Vigilance Bureau believes that he was one of Ravinderpal Sidhu's touts.

Randhir Singh Dhira is one among the touts who the Vigilance Bureau believe played a key role. Dhira is the Ludhiana district manager of Markfed, a state-owned agricultural products marketing organisation. Investigators have identified several properties owned by Dhira, allegedly on Sidhu's behalf. These include houses in Ludhiana, Tarn Taran and Chandigarh, some 60 acres (about 24 hectares) of agricultural land in Moga, Amritsar and Jalandhar, a hotel, which is still under construction, in the resort town of Kulu in Himachal Pradesh, and a silk factory in Bangalore. The total value of these assets is estimated to be between Rs.6 crores and Rs.7 crores. Dhira had faced police investigation of his assets in 1996 but, for reasons best known to the then government, no action was taken despite his indictment by the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police in Ludhiana.

Other questions remain to be answered: notably why Sidhu was appointed in the first place. The appointment was made by the Congress(I) government of Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar. Sidhu, then just over 40, had no record of public service or exceptional academic credentials, and had a nondescript professional record. As a journalist, first with the Chandigarh-based The Tribune and then briefly with The Hindu in a Chandigarh-based position, Sidhu had frequently drawn complaints of corruption. Local businessmen claimed that he had asked for bribes or preferential share allotments to write - or on other occasions, not write - stories. While these complaints were never substantiated, Sidhu's ways were common knowledge among the media community in Chandigarh, and should have been considered before Sidhu's appointment to what he later reportedly underlined was a "constitutional post".

Many people believe that the real reason for Sidhu's appointment was his personal proximity to Brar, who the PPSC chairman when he was a journalist had described as "the Mahatma Gandhi of the Sikhs". Brar denies both the charge and the rumour that Sidhu was at the time considering marrying into the family. He has, however, offered no credible reason for his choice of Sidhu for the post of PPSC chairman. The position has constitutional protection, and Sidhu can only be removed from office after the Supreme Court completes an inquiry into his conduct. A request for that inquiry has now been made, but experts say it will be several months at the very least before the Supreme Court completes its investigation. In the meanwhile, Sidhu will continue to be PPSC chairman - albeit from jail.

Whatever Sidhu's eventual fate may be - it is well-known that the Indian judicial system has a poor record of securing convictions on corruption charges - the affair has cast unsavoury light on Punjab's well-entrenched culture of sleaze in high office. On April 22, the Punjab government sacked Panjab University Vice-Chancellor Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia after a woman research student levelled charges of attempted rape and murder against him. The Vigilance Bureau raided his premises, and is investigating allegations that Ahluwalia took bribes to allow a private computer institute to function from the Panjab University's premises. Charges that he misused university funds are also being studied. A day before Ahluwalia was sacked, Central Bureau of Investigation detectives recovered Rs.1.25 crores from the Ludhiana-based Small Industries Services Institute (SISI) director J.S. Kular. SISI comes under the Union Ministry of Industry.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has won immense goodwill in Punjab for his action on the issue that swept him to power: widespread corruption. Punjab residents have not only been denied opportunities but have also had to suffer government officials who are desperate to recover the bribes they paid to get their jobs in the first place. The depth of public frustration is evident from the decision of the residents of Sidhu's home village of Mandar, near Moga, to ostracise the family.

The Vigilance Bureau has meanwhile started raids on government facilities across the State, seeking to identify government servants who have failed to report for work at offices, schools and hospitals. If such action continues and yields real results, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh will have made an abiding contribution to setting Punjab's crumbling house in order.

The list of assets A list of the alleged assets of Ravi Sidhu, held by him, his relatives and his associates. Masonic Lodge worth Rs.1.75 crores at Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh. An estimated Rs.6 crores to Rs.7 crores-worth hotel property under-construction in Kulu, Himachal Pradesh, a silk factory in Bangalore, and agricultural land in Punjab, allegedly held on Sidhu's behalf by Randhir Singh Dhira. A lodge located on an extent of over two kanals of land worth Rs.40 lakhs at Solan, Himachal Pradesh. A shop-cum-flat worth Rs.93 lakhs, No.139 at Feroze Gandhi Market, Ludhiana, Punjab. An apartment worth Rs.60 lakhs, B502 at the Lagoon Ambience Island, Gurgaon, Haryana. A flat worth Rs.1.75 crores in Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, rented to British Airways. Agreement to purchase House No. 504, Sector 10, Chandigarh. Agricultural land worth Rs.1 crore at Zirakpur, Punjab, in the name of Press Time Information Services. Rs.1.36 crores in illegal foreign currency accounts in Luxembourg, through alleged conduit, G.S. Manchanda. Rs.6.94 crores in seven savings bank accounts held by immediate family and relatives. Rs.8.16 crores in cash in five lockers under the name of Sidhu's brother, Reetinder Singh, and their mother Prithpal Kaur. Rs.69 lakhs in shares and debentures. Rs.1.41 crores recovered from the house of former associate Jagman Singh, who has turned approver.