The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) may summon additional chief secretary Subodh Agarwal and executive engineer Sanjay Agarwal, who is officer on special duty (OSD) to PHED minister Mahesh Joshi to New Delhi for further investigation.
The ED has conducted follow up search operations on at 26 locations including bank accounts in Jaipur and Dausa, Rajasthan under the PMLA, 2002 at official and residential premises of senior PHED officials including Subodh Agarwal, ACS (PHED) in addition to private individuals in Jal Jeevan Mission Scam. During the search operations, a total of Rs. 2.21 crore including unaccounted cash of Rs 48 lakh and Bank balance Rs.1.73 crore, various incriminating documents including property documents, digital devices, have been frozen/seized. Total seizure in this case till date is Rs. 11.03 crore, including gold and silver worth Rs. 6.50 Crore.
How ED came into picture?
ED initiated investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the ACB Rajasthan against Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company and others including PHED officials. Another FIR was also registered by the Rajasthan Police, Bajaj Nagar Police station under various sections of IPC on the basis of complaint alleging therein use of fake and fabricated work experience certificate by one of the suspected firms.
ED investigation revealed that the said contractors were involved in securing tenders pertaining to Jal Jeevan Mission works based on purported fake work completion certificates issued by Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON) and by bribing senior PHED officials. Several middle men and property dealers have aided the PHED officials in siphoning off the illegally earned money from the JJM scam.
Several teams of ED conducted search at the office of Subodh Agarwal in secretariat and his residence for 18 hours. The central investigating team recovered incriminating documents, diaries and some digital evidences like pen drives from the searches.
The ED has also recovered cash and property documents from property dealers close to Subodh Agarwal.
The name of Agarwal came when ED had conducted raids at property dealer Kalyan Singh Kaviya and retired RAS officer Amitabh Kaushik, who were said to be acting as middlemen. The ED had recovered cash Rs 2.5 crore and brick of gold in that search. Since then it was just matter of time and collection of evidences for taking Subodh Agarwal into the grip. Sources said that there have been complaints about irregularities and Agrawal's working related to mining also when Agarwal was helming the mining department.
Earlier, ED had conducted raids in the offices of contractors and few middlemen and recovered incriminating documents from them. After investigation, ED has now reached to many officers and engineers involved in the project.
The central investigating agency has conducted raids at more than two dozen places related to suspects. It has also conducted raids at places of chief engineer K D Gupta, additional chief engineer Dinesh Goyal, executive engineer Sanjay Agarwal and property dealer Ramkaran Sharma.
What is Jal Jeevan Mission ?
Jal Jeevan Mission, is envisioned to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India with equal financial contribution of state and central government.
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