The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a notice to the Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) in connection with an alleged case involving the refund of a bank guarantee worth nearly Rs 2 crore to a company linked to senior AAP minister Sanjeev Arora.
Sources said the notice was issued a few days after the arrest of AAP leader Sanjeev Arora in a money laundering case. The PSPCL has been asked to bring all related records to the ED office in the coming week.
CMD PSPCL Basant Garg confirmed the development, saying the corporation will share all relevant files with the investigating agency. He added that officials will appear before the ED with the required documents.
The case is linked to Hampton Court Business Park in Ludhiana. In 2023, when Arora was a Rajya Sabha MP, Ritesh Properties and Industries Limited applied to PSPCL for a revised NOC to increase its contract demand from 1950 KVA to 7293 KVA at 66 KV voltage.
As per PSPCL rules, the company deposited a bank guarantee of Rs 1.97 crore, which was 35 per cent of the estimated expenditure of the supply system. The NOC was issued on October 20, 2023, and the guarantee remained valid till September 12, 2028.
In 2025, after Arora became an MLA in a bypoll, the company sought a change in supply voltage from 66 KV to 11 KV. For this, PSPCL required a bank guarantee of Rs 1.87 crore and said the earlier guarantee would be returned only after submission of the new one. By then, Arora had been appointed Power Minister in the Bhagwant Mann government in August 2025.
Later, the company approached the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) seeking reduction in the bank guarantee and related charges. In January this year, PSERC ruled that the guarantee should be calculated on contract demand instead of load.
The company then wrote to PSPCL on February 2 requesting the return of the Rs 1.97 crore bank guarantee. PSPCL refunded the amount the very next day, even though the revised guarantee had not yet been submitted.
After objections were raised by PSPCL engineers, the new bank guarantee was eventually submitted on April 6. The demand notice for the revised guarantee had been issued on March 20.
Arora has maintained that there was no wrongdoing, saying the bank guarantee was later replaced and that he had already resigned from the company earlier.
Also read: Case of political victimisation: Sanjeev Arora before HC
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