PHED case: ACB to reapply for remand of three accused

Jaipur: To investigate the role of other officials in the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) bribery case, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) will have to apply for the police remand of three people arrested in the case, including two engineers of the department, again on Monday.
Though the ACB moved an application on Saturday, requesting the remand of R K Meena, chief engineer, PHED (special projects); Subodh Jain, additional chief engineer; and Praful Sontaki, an employee of SPML Infra, for six days, the court asked ACB to apply again on Monday, citing reasons.
"We need to gather various incriminating evidence on the nexus of corruption in the PHED (special projects) wing. We also need to inquire about a few facts mentioned in the diary which we recovered during the raid," said a senior ACB officer.
The ACB will also produce the preliminary investigation report which cited irregularities in awarding tenders and contracts by the PHED to SPML Infra.
ACB's additional SP Shankar Dutt Sharma has been made the investigating officer (IO) in the case. Sharma was the IO in the mining racket case, which was handled well by senior officers and the team led by Sharma.
A day after they arrested Meena, Jain and Prafful, the ACB, rather than asking for police remand, had let the accused be sent into judicial custody.
"This is not new as in the earlier NRHM-IEC case too, we had initially sent the accused, Deepa Gupta, into judicial custody and later took her into police remand," said the officer.
According to sources, the whole corruption racket was busted after ACB received information from union leaders of irregularities committed by the PHED while installing RO plants.
"We did not receive any specific inputs. However, following complaints against PHED, we started a surveillance on their officials which produced strong evidence to bust the racket," said an officer.
The ACB unearthed the PHED racket on July 19 and raided the house of Jain. Later, they arrested Meena and Prafful. Jain was arrested for accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh while the other official was arrested for being a part of the nexus.