Ex PSPCL CMD KD Chaudhary arrested 11 days after ED arrested Power Minister Sanjeev Arora
Former PSPCL CMD KD Chaudhary arrested: Eleven days after ED arrested Power Minister Sanjeev Arora, Punjab VB arrests former PSPCL CMD KD Chaudhary in a decade-old substation case. North Desk on the case and the timing.
North Desk Bureau
Chandigarh, May 20
Eleven days after the Enforcement Directorate arrested Punjab’s sitting Power Minister Sanjeev Arora in a Rs 157-crore money laundering case, the state’s own Vigilance Bureau on Wednesday arrested the man who ran Punjab’s power utility for seven years under the previous Akali government.
The two cases are legally unconnected. The timing has not gone unnoticed.
Vigilance on PSPCL CMD KD Chaudhary arrest
KD Chaudhary, 75, the first chairman-cum-managing director of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited, was taken into custody by the VB’s Economic Offences Wing in Ludhiana along with retired senior executive engineer Sanjeev Prabhakar and builder Amit Garg. The case against them involves a 66 KV electricity substation installed in Basant Avenue colony in 2014-15 — an alleged irregularity that cost PSPCL close to Rs 10 crore, says a VB spokesperson.
It was added that the allegation is that Garg, who developed Basant Avenue and adjoining colonies in Ludhiana, arranged through complicit field officers for PSPCL to absorb the substation’s installation cost. This is a bill that should, under applicable norms, have been his to pay.
The method alleged: keeping electricity load assessments for his interconnected colonies artificially separate, so the combined demand never crossed the threshold that would have made him liable. The proposal went up through XEN Sanjeev Prabhakar and was cleared by CMD Chaudhary, the VB says, despite red flags in the file. These included the fact that the substation sits in open fields 3 km from Pakhowal Link Road with no paved road access, a detail that found no mention in any office noting or the original proposal.
The inquiry into these events was opened in May 2021 — six years after the alleged irregularity, and four years after Chaudhary had resigned.
Quit in Cong regime
Former PSPCL CMD KD Chaudhary arrest: KD Chaudhary left PSPCL in March 2017 when the Congress swept to power. He had served as CMD since June 2010 through four successive extensions, the last granted personally by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in December 2016. At the time of his resignation, Chaudhary said his decisions were open to any fair investigation when allegations were levelled.
That investigation has now, a decade later, produced arrests.
Members of the Punjab State Electricity Board Engineers Association drove in from across the state on Wednesday to stand with Chaudhary in Ludhiana. An office bearer was careful not to defend the decisions under scrutiny but made a pointed remark that this is a 12-year-old case. The association also said they were concerned about his age
Inside PSPCL, the conversation has been less restrained. Employees speaking informally have drawn a direct line between the two arrests — suggesting the Vigilance Bureau’s move against a Badal-era official is timed to blunt the political damage from Arora’s detention. The ED arrested Arora on May 9 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act following raids at his official residence in Chandigarh’s Sector 2. A local court sent him to judicial custody on Monday; his next appearance is June 1. The ED has completed its questioning and is preparing a chargesheet.
The AAP government has said nothing about the sequencing. The VB maintains the case follows lawfully from an inquiry process initiated in 2021.
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