Jalandhar, November 6, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has searched 14 locations across Punjab and Chandigarh in a money laundering investigation involving former Punjab Industries and Commerce Minister Sunder Sham Arora, his son Parteek Arora and their alleged associates.
The searches were conducted on November 2 and 3 by the ED’s Jalandhar Zonal Office under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The agency said it recovered and seized mobile phones, documents, property papers, records relating to plots of the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) and digital devices. Bank lockers were also frozen during the operation.
The searched premises included Arora’s residence in Hoshiarpur, Shivam Hospital in the city and locations linked to SRG Builders and Promoters Private Limited, GRG Developers and Promoters LLP, Gulmohar Township India Private Limited, and their promoters, directors and associates in Chandigarh and Mohali.
The money laundering investigation stems from a Punjab Vigilance Bureau FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, concerning allegations of disproportionate assets and corruption.
The ED recalled that Arora was arrested on October 15, 2022, after allegedly offering a Rs 1 crore bribe to a senior Vigilance Bureau officer to settle pending enquiries against him. He was allegedly caught at Zirakpur while handing over Rs 50 lakh as an advance payment.
According to the ED, Arora exercised direct control over PSIEC during his tenure as Industries and Commerce Minister from March 2017 to September 2021. The agency alleges that he extended undue favours to private real estate entities in the transfer of valuable industrial plots and acquired stakes in real estate companies in the name of his son.
One of the transactions under scrutiny involves industrial plot A-32 in Phase 8, Mohali, originally allotted by PSIEC to JCT Electronics, which subsequently went bankrupt. The plot was transferred to GRG Developers and Promoters LLP for Rs 90.56 crore through an auction conducted by ARCIL in February 2020.
The ED alleges that PSIEC was entitled to 50 per cent of the sale value as unearned increase, along with enhanced land cost and transfer fees, but these dues were not fully paid. It further said that despite cancellation of the tripartite agreement among PSIEC, ARCIL and GRG in August 2021, the lease was neither cancelled nor the plot resumed.
The agency has alleged that Arora approved post-facto proposals relating to the calculation of unearned increase and enhanced fees and that bank records indicate investments by him, through his son, in the purchase of the plot.
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