BUNTY MAHAJAN
JAMMU, APRIL 21: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted searches at 14 locations across the country at the premises of an IAS officer serving in Jammu and Kashmir and three former senior functionaries of the Chenab Valley Power Projects (P) Ltd for alleged irregularities into the allotment of contract for execution of civil works of Kiru hydel power project over river Chenab in 2019.
Pointing out that CBI conducted searches at 14 locations in Jammu, Srinagar, Bihar, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Thiruvananthapuram, sources said that the people whose premises were searched included a senior IAS officer Navin K Choudhary, principal secretary Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare, besides former Managing Director of the CVPPL M S Babu and former Directors, M K Mittal and Arun Kumar Mishra.
In the First Information Report, the CBI said e-tender process wasn’t followed while awarding civil works of the project worth ₹ 2,240 crore to Patel Engineering Ltd. The CVPPL board decided to re-tender all major works through e-tendering process in June 2019, but it was reversed in another board meeting in August the same year, after which the major work was awarded to Patel Engineering Ltd.
Choudhary was chairman of the CVPPL in 2019 when the contract was allotted to Patel Engineering Limited.
It was one of the two projects in Jammu and Kashmir in which, former J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik, who is now the Governor of Meghalaya, had alleged corruption. The other was a discontinued health insurance scheme for the J&K’s Government and Public Sector employees.
Following Malik’s allegations, J&K government last month requested CBI to conduct investigations into both the cases so as to ascertain the truth. “As a person holding high office had said something, we have given our consent to the CBI for investigations in both the matters,’’ had UT’s Lt Governor Manoj Sinha had told reporters last month.
