Chandigarh, may 19: The Enforcement Directorate has summoned the Chief Administrator of the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in connection with its ongoing money laundering investigation into the alleged fraudulent change of land use fraud involving major real estate projects in Punjab.
The summons to 2015-batch IAS officer Sandeep Kumar were issued 10 days after the ED conducted raids at 12 locations across Chandigarh and Mohali under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The agency is probing alleged irregularities in CLU licences granted to projects linked with Suntec City and Altus Space Builders Private Limited.
Kumar is the second IAS officer to be summoned by the probe agency in a span of two days.
The ED case is based on two Punjab Police FIRs registered in 2022 and 2024. The first FIR, lodged at Mullanpur police station, accused former office-bearers of Indian Cooperative Housing Building Society (ICHBS), including Suresh Kumar Bajaj, Aashish Kamra, Ajay Sehgal and Rajesh Girdhar of forging landowners’ consent letters to secure CLU approvals for the Suntec City project.
The ED alleged that fake signatures and thumb impressions were used for over 30 acres of land and that more than ₹150 crore was collected from members without executing sale deeds. GMADA later cancelled the project licence after petitions were filed before the Punjab and Haryana high court.
The second FIR, registered at Phase 11 police station in February 2024, named Altus Space Builders Pvt Ltd and its directors, including Mohinder Singh, Harpreet Singh Sran and Jaswinder Singh.
According to complainants, homebuyers were allegedly misled into believing that the project had received final CLU approval from GMADA, whereas the approval was conditional and subsequently cancelled.
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