DELHI CM KEJRIWAL’S RELATIVE ARRESTED OVER ‘SCAM’ IN DRAIN PROJECT

The Delhi government’s anti-corruption branch (ACB) on Thursday arrested chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s relative, Vinay Bansal, for allegedly submitting fake bills to the city’s Public Works Department for the construction of a drain. Bansal was arrested from his residence in Pitampura.

This is one of the three cases filed in the alleged Rs 10 crore PWD scam that the ACB has been investigating since January 2017.

Bansal is the son of co-accused, Surender Bansal, who is Kejriwal’s brother-in-law. Surender died last year, a day after the case was registered against him. His family had then maintained that he died of natural causes.

Special commissioner of police Arvind Deep, who heads the anti-graft unit, said Bansal had submitted bills pertaining to purchase of material to the PWD for a project contracted to his firm. “Our probe revealed there are no such firms from where the materials were bought. They were all fake bills,” he said.

The Aam Aadmi Party rejected the allegations with the deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia saying it was an attempt by the Centre to arrest and harass AAP leaders. Party’s spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the contract was given to Bansal’s firm in January 2015, a month before Kejriwal became CM and when Delhi was under L-G’s rule.

The ACB comes under the Delhi government’s vigilance department but its chief and other senior officers are appointed by the Delhi lieutenant governor. A senior ACB officer, who did not want to be named, said Bansal was arrested in one of the three cases filed by whistle-blower Rahul Sharma.

In January 2017, Sharma had alleged that the father-son duo’s company M/S Renu Construction Company submitted fake bills and got R 3.10 crore from the Public Works Department (PWD) for building a drain along National Highway 44, from Shani Mandir to Bakoli village, Alipur. The bills pertained to purchase of steel from a Sonipat based company, M/S Mahadev Impex.

ACB probe showed that Surender and Vinay Bansal were partners in Renu Construction, holding 50% shares each.

In November 2017, CPWD also conducted an internal inquiry on the allegations, during which they found that no firm by the name M/S Mahadev Impex exist at the Sonipat address mentioned on the bill. The inquiry also revealed that there was no mention of the make or brand of the cement used in the construction and, except steel there was also no mention of record of materials used.

In the inquiry report, the CPWD noted that the Delhi’s government’s PWD could not produce a copy of the memorandum of understanding(MoU) between them and IIT Roorke for a third-party audit.

The report also noted loopholes in the audit such as collection of samples for testing from only specific locations of the drain.

According to the CPWD’s report, the internal quality assurance team of the PWD did not conduct an inspection of the work.