Jalandhar, Aug. 19 -- The Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned Punjab IAS officer Kanwal Preet Brar for nearly nine hours in connection with its money-laundering investigation into alleged fraud involving change of land use (CLU) approvals for major real-estate projects in Punjab. Brar, a 2007-batch IAS officer who served as director, town and country planning in 2024 and is currently posted as secretary, health and family welfare, appeared before the agency at its regional headquarters in Jalandhar on Tuesday. She reached the office at 10:25 am and left at 7:10pm. The questioning followed the ED's filing of a nearly 3,500-page prosecution complaint before the special PMLA court in Mohali on July 20. In the complaint, the agency accused realtor Ajay Sehgal of being the alleged mastermind behind the generation and concealment of proceeds of crime (PoC) estimated at Rs.348 crore. An ED official familiar with the investigation said Brar's statement was recorded on issues arising from the prosecution complaint, including the process for granting CLU permissions, scrutiny and verification of applications, alleged violations of Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) provisions and the role of competent authorities in detecting purportedly fraudulent consent letters. The official said other senior bureaucrats allegedly connected with the issuance of the CLUs and verification of the consent documents could also be summoned as the investigation progresses. The investigation centres on the Suntec City real-estate project in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh. According to the ED, Sehgal, who was associated with the Indian Cooperative Housing Building Society (ICHBS) Ltd, allegedly submitted forged consent letters to the department of town and country planning to obtain CLUs for 108.58 acres of agricultural land for residential and commercial development. The agency alleges that the CLUs formed the basis for obtaining a licence from the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) and registration of the project under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or RERA. The ED's case originated from an FIR registered at Mullanpur police station in November 2022 against Sehgal and other office-bearers of ICHBS, including Suresh Kumar Bajaj, Aashish Kamra and Rajesh Girdhar, over allegations of cheating landowners and customers through fraudulent CLUs and related documents. Sehgal, described by the ED as a key promoter of the Suntec City project, was arrested on May 22. According to the prosecution complaint, the ED has quantified the alleged proceeds of crime at approximately Rs.348 crore. The amount comprises about Rs.212.58 crore in sales and Rs.135.41 crore in unsold inventory, the agency has alleged. The ED has further alleged that Sehgal failed to transfer land earmarked for economically weaker sections (EWS) to the GMADA estate officer as required under the licence conditions. The agency has also alleged that units were sold before RERA registration and that possession was handed over to some landowners without obtaining the requisite completion certificate from GMADA. The agency has alleged that the building plan and CLU for the Suntec City project were also approved without provision for a mandatory solid-waste management area. The ED investigation has also focused on a joint development agreement between ICHBS Ltd and VRS Township Pvt Ltd, now known as ABS Townships Pvt Ltd. According to the agency, development and sale rights for the project were transferred to ABS Township, whose directors included Sehgal's brothers, Sanjay Sehgal and Anil Sehgal....