Action sought by activist against CB-CID in Yadav Singh case

NOIDA: Activist Dr Nutan Thakur, who was responsible for filing the PIL against Yadav Singh in Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, on Thursday wrote to CBI Director Anil Sinha asking the CBI chief to probe the role of CB-CID officers in the Yadav Singh case. Thakur alleged that officials of the CB-CID had ignored the role of Noida officials involved in the laying of underground cables worth Rs.954.38 crore in Noida in December 2011 despite an FIR registered in the case, which alleged irregularities and fund embezzlement by the officials.
As per Thakur, a Final Report was submitted by CB-CID in the case despite an enquiry by a three-member committee and there being enough evidence against Yadav Singh and his aide project engineer Ramendra Kumar. “The CBI needs to investigate why CB-CID filed a closure report in a Rs. 954 crore scam," she said.
The Noida Authority had in 2012, soon after the Samajwadi Party (SP) stormed to power in Uttar Pradesh, had lodged an FIR in Noida against Yadav Singh, accusing him in the scam. However in 2013, the state government moved the probe from police to the CB-CID which in 2015 gave the official a clean chit.
Nutan said the CBI investigation has now proved that the charges against Yadav Singh and others was fully correct, which proves that ignoring such facts must have been deliberate and intentional. Hence she has asked for fixing the accountability of all the CB-CID officers involved in the investigation, along with the Noida officers who agreed not to object to the closure by CB-CID despite Noida itself having got the FIR registered.
The Rs 954 crore scam allegedly involved alleged irregularities and fund embezzlement in the execution of infrastructure projects by senior Noida Authority officials. Of this Rs 570 crore was for civil works, while Rs 140 crores was to be used for shifting overhead electrical cables underground.
After the scam came to light in 2012, Noida authority had got an FIR registered against two suspended engineers for alleged irregularities and fund embezzlement in the execution of infrastructure projects worth Rs. 954 crore. The two suspended engineers included engineer-in-chief Yadav Singh and project engineer Ramendra for the alleged fraud.
As per the charge sheet filed by the Authority then, agreements with construction companies signed for execution of projects worth Rs. 954 crore in eight days flat in December last year. Rules say agreements for projects worth Rs. 2,000 crore only can be signed in a financial year. The allegations were that tenders were floated first and estimates were prepared later.
Construction companies were hired without tenders being accepted, denying the authority the benefit of competitive pricing. The allegations included that 60 % work had been completed without the signing of agreements and that construction companies and officers had connived and caused the authority a massive revenue loss besides inflated payments made to construction companies.