Details of the Scam:

The Cooperative Bodies of India are a strong pillar of our Resurgent Democracy and provide an attractive mechanism to people at large to pool their meager resources for solving common problems and achieve bigger dreams.  The cooperative sector has been playing a distinct and significant role in the country’s process of socio-economic development. There has been a substantial growth of this sector in diverse areas of the economy during the past few decades. The cooperatives have been operating in various areas of the economy such as credit, production, processing, marketing, input distribution, housing, dairying and textiles.  The cooperatives have been particularly successful in some activities like dairying, sugar and handlooms in rural areas and banking and housing in the urban areas.

 In the urban areas, Cooperative House Building Societies have played a significant role in catering the housing requirements of masses at affordable rates.  Various state governments have provided due thrust to these societies by providing land at subsidized rates.  The United Co-operative House Building Society Limited, Sector 68, Mohali, Punjab is one such society, which was constituted under the Punjab Co-operative Societies Act, 1961 to provide housing to its members.  The society was registered under the provisions of the act, on 17.06.1987, under Registration No. 985, by the Assistant Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Ropar, Punjab and was allotted 8.75 acres of land in Sector 68, Mohali by the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) for construction of 338 dwelling units on 14.03.2000. 

Of late however, with the steep rise in real estate prices, the land mafia and corrupt officials of the Cooperative department have joined hands to exploit the Cooperative movement for their vested interests.  In this society also, the managing committee of the society, headed by its president Mr. Swaran Singh, included many bogus names in the list of members of the society.  These shares were then sold in the market on huge premiums and the perspective buyers were substituted in place of these bogus members as transferees.  The flats were sold directly by the president or through the contractor of the society and the buyers were got regularised as members of the society through the corrupt officials of the Cooperative Departments in what was seen as a win-win situation.  Once these substitute members were declared genuine by the cooperative department and were given the rights of voting in the society, they always voted for the persons to whom they have paid lakhs of rupees as premium in order to protect their interests in the society and commitments made to them during the deal.  The society president in turn, not only made tons of money in the entire process, but also ensured his single-handed control over the society for all times to come.  In order to fetch maximum premiums, some buyers were even committed the floors and locations on which they will be allotted the flats and obviously, higher premiums were charged for better floors and locations.  Further these persons were even allotted their committed flats making mockery of the Cooperative bye-laws which clearly states that the allotment has to be made through draw of lots.

The nexus was so successful that even the flats belonging to the "original" and "genuine" members of the society who have not paid hefty premiums to the managing committee were also sold in the market and they were altogether neglected while giving allotments of flats.  Some genuine members were even issued the allotment letters of flats that do not exist at all as per the approved plan.  Besides this, there is no limit of misappropriation of funds in the society as there is no one to check the financial transactions.  The audits and enquiries also fail to tame the misappropriations because they are not supplied any documents while there is no problem in bribing the concerned officials to any extent.  The functioning of the society reveals that there is no scope or binding of any law of land, rules and regulations in the society.  All efforts to enforce the law have landed on deaf ears probably closed by extraneous considerations.  The whole scam, which involves the president of managing committee Mr. Swaran Singh and officials of various departments of the Government of Punjab runs into few tens of crores of rupees.  We have put into perspective a complete account of events as we have passed through them in the Chronicle along with the copies of all relevant documents, facts and figures.

In this play of Money and Power, the president of society Mr. Swaran Singh and officials/politicians of the Department of Co-operation, Govt of Punjab, are making their fortunes while the genuine members who have invested their lifetime savings in the hope of getting their own house are losing their fight against corruption and injustice.  Countless representations made to the top officials of the Cooperative Department and other High Offices in the Govt of Punjab have fallen on deaf ears.  Many inspectors and officials of the Cooperative Department have figured in the list of beneficiaries of flats in the society at one time or another, while the possibility of many other "benami" flats being owned by the officials of Cooperative Department and of PUDA also cannot be ruled out and needs to be investigated.

It is also worth noting that this is not the only such scam in Punjab.  A similar fraud was recently reported by the Times of Chandigarh (Local Pullout of the Times of India) in another society called The Pancham Cooperative Society which incidentally is just next door to this society <Page1 Page2 Page3>.   Many such cases may come to light if a fair enquiry is carried out by some independent agency in the matter. 

Through these pages we make a humble request to the concerned officers of the Government of India and Government of Punjab and its law enforcement agencies for a fair and independent enquiry of the scam.  We shall be pleased to provide all supporting documents and any other clarifications regarding the case to anyone from the media or press who shall come forward in support of justice.