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ED arrests former Rajasthan minister’s close aide in Jal Jeevan Mission scam case

Jul 17, 2024 03:19 PM IST

ED made the arrest on Tuesday evening after getting conclusive evidence against Sanjay Badaya over his involvement in alleged irregularities in the JJM tenders

The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday arrested Sanjay Badaya, a close aide of former Rajasthan public health and engineering department (PHED) minister Mahesh Joshi, from Jaipur in connection with the alleged Jal Jeevan Mission scam.

Representational image.
Representational image.

Though no official comment was immediately available from the agency, some reports suggested that the ED made the arrest on Tuesday evening after getting conclusive evidence against Badaya over his involvement in alleged irregularities in the JJM tenders, and also forging several reports of the project.

The development also came following ED’s three-day-long interrogation of Badaya in Jaipur on March 16 this year.

The arrest took place based on an FIR lodged by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in August 2023 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after arresting two engineers of the department – Maya Lal Saini and Pradeep Kumar – along with contractor Padamchand Jain, who were found to be part of a bribery racket that was operated for the JJM project in Rajasthan.

The ACB alleged in its complaint that Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company and others were involved in giving bribes to public servants in order to obtain illegal protection, obtaining tenders, getting bills sanctioned and covering up irregularities in respect of work executed by them in respect of various tenders received by them from the PHED.

“The suspects were also involved in the purchase of stolen goods from Haryana for using the same in their tenders/contracts and had also submitted fake work completion letters from IRCON to get PHED contracts,” the ED said in a statement issued on September 3 last year.

The Jal Jeevan Mission launched by the Union government aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through household tap connections and it was being implemented by the state PHED in Rajasthan.

After the ED took over the case, Badaya’s name cropped up as a private person close to the former PHED minister and who used to run the racket and ‘handle’ officers of the department.

Following the development, the ED also conducted a slew of search operations at the residences and department offices of Joshi and Badaya in September, November, and January along with the former PHED secretary IAS Subodh Agrawal, an executive engineer Paritosh Gupta, and Banswara-based contractor Jagadish Prasad.

The agency also seized a total of 3,900,000 in cash, along with various incriminating documents including property details, digital evidence, and mobiles.

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