Agency suspects routing of funds to foreign
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 6: The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) today conducted sustained questioning of senior IAS officer Navin Choudhary and three former Directors/Executive Directors of Chenab Valley Power Projects Private Limited (CVPPPL) at its Jammu office in connection with an FIR registered against them on the charges of offer of Rs 300 crore corruption by former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, presently the Governor of Meghalaya.
Reliable sources told the Excelsior that Navin Choudhary, an IAS officer in the rank of Principal Secretary in Jammu and Kashmir who was recently transferred to Mizoram, was questioned by the CBI officials at their Jammu office for four hours today in connection with the scam.
Three others including M S Babu, former Managing Director CVPPPL and a resident of Trivandrum and two former Directors including M K Mittal and Arun Kumar Mishra, residents of Mumbai and Sarita Vihar Delhi are being quizzed for last two to three days respectively.
“Presently all four were grilled separately while their cross-examination will take place later,” sources said, adding the Agency has prepared detailed questionnaire.
Representatives of M/s Patel Engineering Mumbai which has also been named in the First Information Report (FIR) will also be subjected to grilling separately.
The Agency suspects that some funds might have been routed to foreign countries, sources said.
Top officers of the CBI are involved in the questioning.
Asserting that they have received vital clues during questioning of all four persons in the scam, sources said the interrogation will continue to gather answers to their entire questionnaire.
On April 21, the CBI had conducted simultaneous raids at 14 locations including residences of then Principal Secretary Agriculture Development and Farmers Welfare Department Navin Choudhary at Gandhi Nagar in Jammu and Darbanga in Bihar, M S Babu, M K Mittal and Arun Kumar Mishra, all former officers who held top posts in the CVPPPL and proprietors of M/s Patel Engineers Mumbai.
In its FIR pertaining to the alleged malpractices in the award of contract for civil works package of Kiru hydroelectric power project, the CBI had said guidelines related to e-tendering were not followed.
“The case was registered on allegations of malpractices in award of the contract worth Rs 2,200 crore (approximately) of civil works of Kiru Hydro Electric Power Project(HEP) to a private company in the year 2019,” sources said.
“Though a decision was taken in 47th Board meeting of CVPPPL for re-tender through e-tendering with reverse auction after cancellation of ongoing tendering process, same was not implemented (as per decision taken in 48th board meeting) and tender was finally awarded to Patel Engineering Ltd,” the FIR alleged.
Malik, who was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir between August 23, 2018 and October 30, 2019 had claimed that he was offered a Rs 300 crore bribe for clearing two files.
“After going to Kashmir, two files came to me (for clearance), one belonging to Ambani and another to an RSS-affiliated man who was a Minister in the previous Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition Government and claimed to be very close to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), he had said.
“I was informed by Secretaries in both the departments that there is a scandal and I accordingly cancelled both the deals. The Secretaries told me that ‘you will get Rs 150 crore each for clearing the files’ but I told them that I have come with five kurta-pyjamas and will leave with that only,” Malik had told a gathering at an event in Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan in October last year.
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