Sources in the Vigilance said the inquiry report has been submitted to the Local Bodies Department.

Various documents of the Vigilance Bureau (copies of which are with The Indian Express) reveal that MC’s resolutions were tampered and norms were thrown to the wind by officials of state Local Bodies Department in 2006 for clearance of mega projects.

Interestingly, MC officials sought objections through advertisements in newspapers on January 10, 2006, and took a decision on the project the very next day, January 11, 2006.

Seeking registration of a case under sections 409, 431 and 120-B of the IPC against persons involved in the scam, SS Sharma, a social worker, on whose complaint the inquiry started, also demanded a probe into encroachment on the 20-foot-wide road by the project owners. Sharma, who procured the documents under the RTI Act, said various sections of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act (PMCA), 1976, were violated by the officials to clear the project. Work on the mall was stopped after irregularities surfaced.

Mayor Shwet Malik said the probe was on and action would be taken against erring officials. He added that the multi-crore project was cleared during the previous Congress regime.

In another similar case in which the vigilance wing of the Local Bodies Department has conducted a probe, violation of provisions under Section 275 (3) of the PMCA—in which government seeks approval of the MC for the land use change and final approval— were violated.

Interestingly, while the MC kept the agenda related to the building plan at Kitchlu Chowk pending, it was shown “passed” in the papers and former secretary, local bodies, BR Bajaj notified the approval for the building, which is owned by family members of former deputy speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Darbari Lal. A former MC councillor, Naresh Sharma, who has sought details of the case through the RTI Act, said the House had never passed the resolution to clear the building plan. He said the site of the building owned by Darbari Lal’s wife Beena Rani and sons, Rajesh and Karnveer, was an open space and its land use was fraudulently changed for a structure that hampers traffic on the six-road intersection. Notably, the work on this building has also been stopped.