ED Names Ex-Delhi Jal Board Chief Engineer, 3 Others In First Chargesheet In DJB Money-Laundering Case

ED filed its first chargesheet in a money-laundering case connected with the alleged irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). It named four individuals and a company as accused.

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 28 filed its first chargesheet in a money-laundering case connected with the alleged irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), official sources told news agency PTI on Saturday.

The chargsheet includes named of four individuals and a company as accused. These include former DJB chief engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora, former NBCC general manager D K Mittal, contractor Anil Kumar Agarwal, one Tejinder Singh and NKG Infrastructure Limited.

The prosecution complaint was filed by the federal agency before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Delhi on Thursday. The 8,000-page-long prosecution complaint includes 140 operational pages apart from annexures.

The PMLA court has listed the matter for April 1 for taking cognisance of the chargesheet, they said.

The agency seeks the prosecution of the four accused under the PMLA and also informed that it might further file supplementary complaints, PTI reported.

ED has alleged that the bribe money which was generated from corruption in a contract issued by the Delhi Jal Board was received by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party as election in Delhi. It has also summoned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for questioning in the case, but he did not depose before it.

The AAP chief was arrested by the ED on March 21 in another money-laundering case linked to the excise policy case.

As part of the probe, the agency had raided the premises of AAP's Rajya Sabha MP and treasurer N D Gupta, former DJB member Shalabh Kumar, Kejriwal's personal assistant Bibhav Kumar, chartered accountant Pankaj Mangal and some others in February.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an FIR, accused Arora (ex-DJB chief engineer) of awarding a DJB contract to NKG Infrastructure Limited for a total cost of Rs 38 crore. The contract was allotted despite the company not meeting the technical eligibility criteria. The Enforcement Directorate  has based its case on this, PTI reported. On January 31, ED arrested Arora and Agarwal in this case, PTI reported.

The central probe agency has also claimed that Arora knew that NKG Infrastructure Limited does not meet the technical eligibility but even then the company ended up bagging the contract by submitting forged documents.

An ED statement has alleged that after awarding the contract to the company, Arora received bribe in cash and in bank accounts. Later, he passed on the money to various people managing the DJB affairs, as well as those connected with the AAP.

The federal agency has also alleged that the bribe amounts were also passed on as election funds to the AAP. ED also alleged that out of a total of Rs 100 crore from the scrapped excise policy 2021-22, a sum of Rs 45 crore was used by the AAP for campaigning in Goa Assembly polls.

The agency has also claimed that the DJB contract was awarded at highly-inflated rates, enbaling them to collect bribes from the contractors. A total of Rs 17 crore as against the contract value of Rs 38 crore were spent towards the contract. The remaining amount was siphoned off in the guise of various "fake" expenses. These fake expenses were booked for election funds and bribes, the ED has alleged.

Meanwhile, Delhi minister Atishi denied the charges at a press briefing, claiming that the case was another attempt to tarnish the image of the Aam Aadmi Party.