The Punjab State Vigilance Bureau on Monday arrested retired chief engineer Harwinder Singh, facing criminal investigation as accused in the Rs 1,000 crore Punjab irrigation scam, after he surrendered in the trial court at SAS Nagar.
Supreme Court while rejecting his bail plea on December 7 had also directed him to surrender within one week and face the investigations, said the spokesperson of the Vigilance Bureau adding that after his surrender, the trial court has sent him for vigilance custody till December 14.
Spokesperson said that the Punjab and Haryana High Court had also declined any relief to the accused for granting anticipatory bail while asking him to join investigations.
The Bureau had already registered a case to probe into the irregularities and corruption charges levelled against him and others in allotment of tenders under various sections.
Bureau, during its investigations, has found Harvinder Singh to be the brain behind the scam. It has also traced two properties of Harvinder in Mohali and Chandigarh.
Harvinder, who retired from service in Oct- 2014, came in contact with contractor Gurinder Singh in 2010 and was instrumental in giving most of the contracts to him by leaking information about the tenders.
Harvinder used to work from Gurinder’s home in Sector 15, Chandigarh, which was converted to an office by the accused to complete their paper work needed to apply for the tenders.
When Harvinder took over as the Chief Engineer in 2010, there were five complaints of irregularities pending against Gurinder, but he ignored them and helped him. Harvinder, whose family belongs to Jalandhar, had done most of his studies in Bhopal as his father was an Executive Engineer in the Public Works Department’s Road and Bridges wing in Madhya Pradesh.
Spokesperson said that the Bureau would investigate the matter thoroughly during his custodial interrogation.
Bureau has been investigating illegal allotment of multi-crore projects in Irrigation Department to a few “favoured” contractors by the concerned officers who have provided them tailor-made conditions of contracts and ignored prescribed conditions and flouted all rules or regulations of tenders. Bureau alleged, in the past seven-eight years, engineers from the Irrigation Department and other officials misused powers connived with Gurinder and allocated works worth Rs 1,000 cr to the contractor on a rate which was 50 percent more than departmental rates and thereby caused huge loss to the Government.