ED gets 4-day custody of accused in Jal Jeevan Mission case

Enforcement Directorate takes custody of accused in Jal Jeevan Mission case involving bribery and corruption in Rajasthan.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken four-day custody of an accused in the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) case in Rajasthan.

The accused has been identified as Piyush Jain. He was arrested on Thursday and produced before a Jaipur special court that sent him to ED custody.

The ED probe is based on a case registered by the Jaipur Anti-Corruption Branch. It alleged that Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, Mahesh Mittal, proprietor Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company, Mr. Piyush, and others were involved in giving bribes to public servants.

In lieu of the bribes, the officials extended favours like allocating tenders, getting bills cleared, and covering up the irregularities in the works executed by the contractors in respect of various tenders received by them from the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED), the ED said.

“The suspects were also involved in the purchase of stolen goods from Haryana for using the same in their tenders/contracts and had also submitted fake work completion letters from IRCON to get PHED contracts,” said the agency.

The ED alleged that the two contractors were involved in securing tenders pertaining to JJM works based on purported fake work completion certificates issued by IRCON and by bribing senior PHED officials. “Several middlemen and property dealers have aided the PHED officials in siphoning off the illegally earned money from the JJM scam,” it said.

Mr. Piyush was allegedly managing the affairs of the accused firms and had also received about ₹3.5 crore. ”Further, CDR [Call Detail Record] analysis of his mobile revealed that he was also influencing officials of the PHED. In addition to the above, several summons were also issued to the accused in order to inquire about the beneficiary of proceeds of crime, but he did not join the investigation,” said the ED.