While this sounds like a straightforward prelude to a tale of bamboozlement, the inside story is very different — one that involves the duplicity of officials at the UT Estate Office.

The commercial site in question is in Sector 46. Tehal Singh had placed a bid for this site on behalf of his company AB Financer Private Limited. He was also declared successful. However, Singh could not get the name of this company approved by the Registrar of Companies, Jalandhar, and subsequently changed the name to Tehal Singh Financer Private Limited. He told the UT Estate Office about this new development.

However, Tehal Singh soon learnt that his partners in another company, AB Marketing Private Limited, of which he was also a director, had allegedly colluded with executives of the UT Estate Office to get the same site allotted to AB Marketing. They had also forged Tehal Singh’s signatures in the process, a crime confirmed later by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory.

Enraged, Singh filed a case with the Vigilance department in 2003 against his partners K C Arora and Neelam Arora and the then top officers of the UT Estate Office -- former assistant estate officer R K Rao, former superintendent Amar Singh Khepar, Mehal Chand, D C Bajaj and Sucha Ram. They were all booked five years ago following Singh's complaint and were slapped with charges of corruption, forgery, fraud and criminal conspiracy.

Ironically, though the Vigilance department is yet to file a chargesheet in this case, they pushed Singh behind bars last week — whose complaint about the illegal allotment of the site in Sector 46 had actually opened a can of worms in the Estate Office.

Following Singh's complaint in 2003, all persons named in his FIR were arrested except R K Rao, who merely gave a statement. Rao is at present the UT Deputy Commissioner. When contacted, he said, “My subordinates did not apprise me that Tehal Singh had changed the name of his company. They allotted the land to AB Marketing. They were arrested and the case is still on. I had no role to play in it.”

Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vigilance, Pramod Kumar was asked why his department was dragging its feet on producing a chargesheet though it had been prompt in arresting the complainant. He said, “We are digging up old cases. During the time of the bid, Tehal Singh gave a false company name. He could have been arrested any time.” He admitted the Vigilance had been lax in producing a chargesheet. “We shall now examine both cases simultaneously and then decide which one needs the chargesheet.”