Punjab: Jalandhar court hands down 9-year jail term to drug lord Raja Kandola in PMLA case

The Jalandhar district and sessions court on Tuesday sentenced NRI drug lord Ranjeet Singh, alias Raja Kandola, to nine years’ imprisonment and his wife, Rajwant Kaur, for three years in jail in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case linked with a ₹200-crore ICE (methamphetamine) drug seizure.
Kandola was brought from Tihar jail for his hearing in Jalandhar on Tuesday.
The court acquitted his son, Bally Singh, in the case.
The court also slapped a fine of ₹1 lakh on Kandola, while his wife was fined ₹25,000.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed a chargesheet under the PMLA against Kandola, who belongs to Haipowal village of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr), by the central agency’s former assistant director Niranjan Singh, in 2015.
Kandola, a UK-based NRI, was arrested in June 2012 by Punjab Police. He escaped from police custody in September the same year but was rearrested in New Delhi. He is lodged in the Tihar Jail in Delhi since then.
An FIR was registered against Kandola, his wife Rajwant, their son Bally among others at the Kartarpur police station under Sections 22/29 of the NDPS Act and Section 25 of the Arms Act. On the basis of the FIR, the ED probed the inflow of money from foreign accounts.
In October 2012, the ED attached ₹20-crore worth properties belonging to Kandola, including palatial bungalows, a 9.5-acre farmhouse at Samrala in Ludhiana district, Hotel Roop Palace in Ropar and a bungalow at the DLF City Phase-I in Gurgaon.
While the total registered value of the properties was about ₹5.6 crore, the market value of these assets was estimated to be over ₹20 crore.
Kandola was allegedly running a racket manufacturing ICE (a party drug) from methamphetamine and ephedrine and was getting heroin supplies from Pakistan as part of his illegal drug syndicate. He was allegedly supplying drugs at locations in Punjab, Delhi and other big cities of the country. Kandola’s connections with residents in Canada, Australia, and the United States are also under the scanner of enforcement and anti-narcotic agencies.
Acquitted in NDPS case in 2023
On December 2023, the district and sessions judge acquitted Kandola and 13 others in the ₹200-crore ICE peddling case registered on June 1, 2012, at Kartarpur police station.
Kandola was arrested by the then in-charge of Jalandhar rural police’s crime investigation agency (CIA), Inderjit Singh, who was recently busted in a smuggling case and subsequently dismissed as an inspector.
The court then observed that one of the key facts on which the acquittal came was the fact that the investigation officer Inderjit Singh (now dismissed) was serving as an honorary inspector, while he was actually a head constable. It was argued that a police official of the rank less than ASI could not investigate an NDPS case. It was also pointed that the main allegation was of synthesising ICE, whereas only the seizure of heroin was shown.
Kandola is named in several NDPS cases in police stations across the state.