The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has arrested Vinay Bansal, the son of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s brother-in-law in an alleged PWD scam. The arrest evoked an angry response from the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that it was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s vendetta politics.
Vinay Bansal, the son of Kejriwal’s late brother-in-law Surender Bansal, was a partner in a firm which was involved in the alleged scam worth over Rs 6 crore.
“Vinay Bansal was arrested from his residence in Pitampura after he failed to give satisfactory replies to our queries about a firm —’Mahadeo Impacts’,” said Special Commissioner of Police Arvind Deep who heads ACB. Bansal’s firm showed purchase of raw materials for the construction of a Public Works Department (PWD) drain, Deep added.
“ We received a complaint that Surender Bansal got a tender below 46 per cent on behalf of a company, Renu Construction, on the estimated cost of Rs 4.9 lakh. Accordingly ACB registered an FIR and probe was taken up, Deep said.
“The complaint also mentioned that the quality of products was sub-standard which was corroborated during the investigation. Iron and cement were bought from Mahadeo Impacts which was later found to be non-existent,” the ACP chief said.
Reacting to Bansal’s arrest, Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia alleged that for the last three years, the Delhi Police and the ACB are being used by the lieutenant Governor and the Central Government for arresting AAP leaders.
The Delhi Police is “planning just one thing: How to make AAP people unhappy”, he said. Bansal was doing projects with the Delhi Government even before the Kejriwal Government. The current case is on a contract he won before the AAP Government came to power, Sisodia said.
Sisodia claimed that IIT Roorkee had done a third party audit as per the terms of the project and submitted a report and the PWD had also said that the work was done well. After the complaint, the ACB got a separate inquiry conducted by Sri Ram labs which also said that work was satisfactory, Sisodia said.
“This is part of the chain of arrests against AAP MlAs,” Sisodia said. “The good thing is that there’s justice in this country and when cases go to court it goes against police and police is being asked why did you do it. We are very sure that this case will be exposed in the court”, Sisodia added.
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj too trashed the very idea of any corruption in this particular issue. “There can be only two ways of corruption in PWD drain construction: the tender was rigged to favour of Chief Minister’s relative or the payment was made for sub-standard work or incomplete work. In this case, nothing of this sort happened,” he tweeted.
However, ACB officials rebutted AAP Government’s claim that a third party audit had cleared the project and said that four PWD officials had “colluded” with the company in the alleged wrongdoing.
ACB sources said that the ultrasound velocity test and Rebound Jammer tests that were carried out by Shriram Institute for Industrial Research to check the quality of work found it “unsatisfactory”. They also claimed that the MoU signed between PWD and IIT-Roorkee for the third-party audit was not there in the records. The investigation also found “the collusion of four PWD officials” who were also questioned in the matter, they said.
During questioning, Bansal was evasive and had claimed that he was not an active partner in Renu Constructions, they said. “It was found that he has 50 per cent shares in the firms and the records, agreements, acceptance of measurements, bills, etc, were signed by him,” the ACB sources claimed.
There was some other correspondence like request of approval of drawings that had his signatures, it is alleged.
The partnership agreement (signed between the PWD and Renu Constructions) before the award of work was signed by the father-son duo, ACB sources claimed. The investigation of the ACB revealed that Bansal’s firm Renu Constructions had procured steel and cement from a firm named M/s Mahadev Impex. However, it was found that the firm does not exist.
It may be noted that three FIRs, including one against a company run by the chief minister’s brother-in-law Surender Bansal, were registered by the ACB in the PWD scam case on May 9 last year. Three companies, including Renu Constructions (owned by Bansal, Kamal Singh and Pawan Kumar), were included in the FIRs.