ED Punjab CLU Probe: What’s Behind the IAS Officer Summons in Suntec City CLU Scam
A Q&A explainer on the Enforcement Directorate’s money-laundering investigation into alleged change-of-land-use fraud in the Greater Mohali area, and why two senior Punjab IAS officers are now being questioned
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, August 26
Q: What’s the latest in the ED Punjab CLU Probe?
ED Punjab CLU Probe: The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Anurag Verma, a 1993-batch Punjab-cadre IAS officer and former Chief Secretary, to appear before it on August 31 at its zonal office in Jalandhar. Verma, currently Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue), is being questioned for the first time in the case. On the same day the summons to Verma went out, the ED also re-summoned IAS officer Kanwal Preet Brar — who had already spent close to nine hours before the agency on August 18 — asking her to return on August 27 with additional documents.
Verma is the second IAS officer pulled into this probe. That two senior bureaucrats, one of them a former Chief Secretary, are being questioned within roughly two weeks of each other is what elevates this from a routine ED summons to a story worth tracking closely.
Q: What is CLU, and why does it matter here?
ED Punjab CLU Probe: CLU stands for change of land use — the government approval needed to convert agricultural land into land usable for residential or commercial construction. In fast-growing belts around Chandigarh and Mohali, CLU approvals are the gatekeeping step that turns farmland into a real estate project. Fraud at this stage — forged landowner consent, misrepresented land status, or irregular processing — can taint everything built downstream: the project’s registration, its licence, and eventually the money raised from buyers.
Q: What exactly is the ED investigating?
ED Punjab CLU Probe: There appear to be two related strands within the same broader probe:
The Suntec City strand: The ED alleges that realtor Ajay Sehgal, associated with the Indian Cooperative House Building Society (ICHBS) Ltd, submitted forged consent letters to the Department of Town and Country Planning to obtain CLU approval for 108.58 acres of agricultural land in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh, for the Suntec City project. The agency has said it found alleged forged signatures and thumb impressions on consent documents covering 30.5 acres belonging to 15 landowners.
The Muirwoods Ecocity strand: Separately, the ED is examining an unauthorised layout modification through which group housing sites in the Muirwoods Ecocity project were allegedly transferred to Dhir Constructions, owned by Gaurav Dhir — after an application to hand those sites to the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) had been rejected. The agency has also flagged that the builder was allegedly shielded by action being initiated under the milder Section 85 of the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, when the facts, it says, warranted the stricter Section 90.
Both strands fall under the ED’s broader inquiry into how CLU permissions were processed, scrutinised and verified — and what role government officials played in detecting (or not detecting) fraudulent consent letters.
Q: Where did this case originate?
ED Punjab CLU Probe: The case traces back to an FIR registered at Mullanpur police station in November 2022 against Sehgal and other ICHBS office-bearers — including Suresh Kumar Bajaj, Aashish Kamra and Rajesh Girdhar — on allegations of cheating landowners and customers through fraudulent CLUs and related documents. The ED built its money-laundering case on top of that FIR. Ajay Sehgal, described by the agency as the alleged mastermind behind generating and concealing the proceeds of crime, was arrested on May 22, 2026. The ED filed a nearly 3,500-page prosecution document before a special PMLA court in Mohali on July 20.
Q: Who are Anurag Verma and Kanwal Preet Brar, and what’s their alleged connection?
ED Punjab CLU Probe: Neither officer has been named an accused; both are being questioned as officials who held relevant posts when the alleged irregularities occurred.
Verma was heading the Department of Housing and Urban Development at the time the alleged irregularities took place; he now holds the revenue portfolio as Additional Chief Secretary. He has said the ED’s summons didn’t specify which case he’s being called in for, but that he has gone through it and will present the required records with what he called clear facts.
Brar served as Director, Town and Country Planning, in 2024, and is being questioned specifically about how CLU applications were processed and approved during her tenure — including what due diligence, if any, was done to verify landowners’ consent. Investigators are also reportedly examining the role of other officials who were posted in the Housing Department during 2024.
Q: How much money is involved?
The ED has quantified the alleged proceeds of crime at approximately ₹348 crore — about ₹212.58 crore from completed sales and ₹135.41 crore in unsold inventory.
Q: What else has the ED alleged against the project and its promoters?
Beyond the forged-consent allegations, the ED’s complaint lists a set of regulatory lapses: that Sehgal failed to transfer land earmarked for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) to the GMADA estate officer as required under the licence conditions; that units were sold before RERA registration and possession handed over without the requisite completion certificate from GMADA; and that the building plan and CLU for Suntec City were approved without provision for a mandatory solid-waste management area.
The ED has also traced how development and sale rights for the project were transferred to VRS Township Pvt Ltd — now ABS Townships Pvt Ltd — whose directors include Sehgal’s brothers, Sanjay and Anil Sehgal. ABS Township subsequently registered further projects, including La Canela Phase 1 and District 7, with RERA, generating what the agency alleges are further proceeds through unit sales in New Chandigarh. Units in La Canela Phase 2, the ED says, were sold without RERA approval at all. The agency says GMADA had been receiving complaints about the alleged use of forged consent letters since 2020.
Q: Is there a political dimension to this?
One detail worth flagging carefully: reports on the case note that the CLU policy at the centre of the Suntec City allegations was reversed in 2022, when Aman Arora — now president of AAP’s Punjab unit — held the Housing and Urban Development portfolio. No wrongdoing has been alleged against Arora in connection with this, and the reports do not draw a direct link between the policy reversal and the fraud allegations. It’s a thread worth watching rather than a claim to make.
Q: What happens next?
Brar is due back before the ED on August 27 with additional documents. Verma appears for the first time on August 31. The ED’s case remains at the investigation stage even after its July 20 prosecution complaint — meaning further summons, and potentially further names, are likely as the agency continues examining the roles of officials across the Housing Department and GMADA during the relevant years.
The allegations detailed above are part of an ongoing ED investigation and do not by themselves establish wrongdoing on the part of any individual named.
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