Case against nine for 6cr loss to DJB

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a chargesheet against eight serving and former executive engineers of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and the owner of a private company for allegedly conniving and cheating the civic body by supplying spurious and fake spare parts for sewer maintenance in the capital causing a loss of over Rs 6 crore.
After completing a two-year-long probe, the agency filed seven chargesheets in four different courts - Rohini, Karkardooma, Tis Hazari and Saket - as the alleged fraud was spread across five sub-divisions of the Delhi Jal Board. CBI had filed separate cases as well in the matter.
CBI’s teams used labourers and engineers in a huge exercise to dig out spurious equipment from sewer lines in these sub-divisions to establish allegations against the officials and the criminal conspiracy behnd the fraud.
“CBI has filed chargesheets against certain engineers of DJB and owner of a private company under sections of IPC and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act in the designated courts, Delhi after thorough investigation,” CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said.
CBI has charged Raman Gupta, owner of a Kirti Nagar-based private company, Metro Projects, besides eight serving and former officials of DJB – Attar Singh, Banwari Lal, Jagdish Chand, Satish Chandra Vashishtha, Atul Kumar Arora, Kailash Chand, Gajendra Pal Singh and Jagdish Kumar Arora.
It has been alleged that Gupta entered into a criminal conspiracy with engineers of DJB and created a forged authorisation letter of a Mumbai-based company that he was their sole authorised dealer here.
CBI alleged that during 2009-12, work orders amounting to Rs 5.90 crore were given by DJB to Metro Projects for pumps, gear boxes and other such material of a particular brand which was manufactured by the Mumbai-based company.
It is alleged that Gupta supplied duplicate and spurious products bearing brand name of products manufactured by Mumbai-based company having its plant in Andheri (West).
CBI alleged that by this forgery and cheating caused a loss of Rs 40.8 lakh to DJB’s sub-division 3, Rs 1.34 crore loss to sub-division 4, Rs 1.65 crore to sub-division 5, Rs 1.90 crore to sub-division 6 and Rs 73.7 lakh to sub-division 7.