Nirmal Singh Bhanghu, who defrauded about 5 crore people of the country of Rs 50,000 crores through the chit fund company PACL i.e. Pearls Group, has died. According to information, Bhanghu was admitted to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital after his health deteriorated in Delhi jail, where he died. Nirmal Singh Bhanghu, Managing Director of PGF Limited, was arrested by the CBI on January 8, 2016 in the chit fund scam operated by PGF/PACL Limited. He was still in jail.
Nirmal Singh Bhanghu, the owner of Pearls Group, was a resident of Barnala district of Punjab. Initially, he used to sell milk on a bicycle. After this, he went to Kolkata in the 70s in search of a job. There he worked for a few years in an investment company Pearls. After that, he started working in Golden Forest India Limited, a Haryana-based company that defrauded investors of crores of rupees. After this company closed, Nirmal Singh became unemployed but during this time he had learned a good skill of defrauding people in the name of chit fund. In 1980, he formed a company named Pearls Golden Forest (PGF), which promised people to return good profits by investing in plantations of trees like teak. By 1996, he had collected crores of rupees from this, but due to income tax and other investigations, he had to close this company.
Invested crores of rupees by luring them with huge profits
Nirmal Singh Bhanghu formed a real estate company named PACL in 1996 and then turned it into an investment scheme. He lured people with the promise of huge profits and got them to invest crores of rupees. Within no time, 5 crore innocent investors invested Rs 50,000 crore. PACL ran its business with around 30 lakh agents. Through this fraud, Bhanghu built an empire worth billions of rupees. Today, Bhanghu has properties worth billions in almost every small and big city of the country. He also has priceless properties in Australia and other places.
Despite being a real estate company, it works like an investment firm
During this time, Pearl Group came under the radar of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). SEBI found in its investigation that PACL had cheated investors and taken about Rs 50,000 crore from them in the name of the scheme. Despite being a real estate company, working as a chit fund company seemed suspicious to SEBI. PACL went to court against SEBI’s investigation. The case went on in the court for 8 years but by then PACL’s business had increased manifold. In 2014, the Supreme Court gave its verdict against PACL and in one stroke, crores of rupees of investors were lost. After the scam of Nirmal Singh Bhanghu’s Pearl Group was exposed, it turned out to be a fraud of Rs 50,000 crore. After this, ED entered the case and seized Bhanghu’s properties in India and abroad. Bhanghu had collected thousands of crores of rupees from people and invested it abroad.
Australian veteran cricketer Brett Lee was signed for the advertisement
Nirmal Singh Bhanghu grew closer to politicians and film stars. PACL also sponsored IPL and World Kabaddi Tournament and also started a news channel. Australian veteran cricketer Brett Lee was signed for advertisements. On January 8, 2016, CBI arrested four officials of the company including Bhanghu in the chit fund scam. On September 14, 2023, Punjab Vigilance Bureau also arrested Pearls Group owner Bhanghu’s wife Prem Kaur. She had been avoiding arrest by not joining the investigation of the case for a long time. She was named in the case of usurping properties belonging to PACL Limited. This case was registered three years ago at Police Station City Zira Firozpur. It is alleged that he had authorized his close ones to sell the subsidiary and group companies of PACL and PGF in the state, contrary to the order of the Supreme Court.
Crores of rupees of investors are still stuck
The Supreme Court had constituted a high-level committee headed by Justice (Retd.) RS Lodha to identify the assets of PACL Limited and return the proceeds from their sale to those investors. On its recommendation, the money was also returned to the investors. Some of the people who have documents of investment in PACL have been returned money and many people are yet to be refunded money.
Report: Moni Devi
