The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth ₹8.80 crore of former Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Chief Engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora and others in connection with a money laundering case alleging corruption in the grant of work contract to a private company.
The Delhi-based properties belong to Mr. Arora, his wife Alka Arora; Anil Kumar Aggarwal, the proprietor of Integral Screw Industries (sub-contractor); and NKG Infrastructure Limited, which had been given a contract worth about ₹38 crore.
The ED probe is based on a first information report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) alleging that Mr. Arora awarded a flowmetre contract of the DJB to the NKG Infrastructure at a highly inflated cost, even though the company did not meet the technical eligibility criteria.
The agency has alleged that the NKG Infrastructure obtained the bid by submitting forged documents. Mr. Arora, who was allegedly aware of the fact that the company did not not meet the eligibility criteria, allowed the sanctioning of the tender. The company sub-contracted the work to Integral Screws, a proprietorship firm of Mr. Aggarwal.
Of the ₹24-crore payment received by the DJB, only about ₹14 crore was spent towards the contract work and the remaining was allegedly siphoned off or spent for bribe. It is alleged that Mr. Arora received ₹3.19 crore in bribe, out of which he transferred ₹2 crore to the other DJB officials and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as election fund.
The ED had earlier conducted searches on July 24, 2023, and November 17, 2023, following which Mr. Arora and Mr. Aggarwal were arrested on January 31, 2024. Both the accused are currently in judicial custody. A prosecution complaint against the accused persons was filed by the agency on March 28.
The agency had recently summoned the Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor, Arvind Kejriwal, who is also in judicial custody after being arrested in the excise policy case, in the DJB case as well for recording his statement.
