Union Energy Secretary Alok Kumar and Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal may soon be repatriated to their cadre state of Uttar Pradesh as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has already sought sanction to prosecute them in a Rs 2,268 crore Provident Fund (PF) scam in the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL).
Sources confirmed that the order for their repatriation may come "any time" as the Union government does not want to face the embarrassment of having its top officers investigated for corruption. The government, therefore, wants to shift the action to the state.
The CBI had earlier sought the sanction to probe the two officers in a case relating to illegally investment of the provident fund of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) employees in a private company, Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), which was later accused of siphoning off Rs 31,000 crore of bank loans through a web of shell companies, as per the reports.
Besides Kumar and Agarwal, the CBI also sought permission to prosecute the then MD of UPPCL, Aparna.
The UPPCL invested a total of Rs 4,122 crore in short-term fixed deposit schemes of DHFL, out of which Rs 1,854 crore was received on the maturation of FDs, but Rs 2,268 crore is still not recovered. Sanjay Agarwal was UPPCL Chairman from 2013 to the middle of 2017, and part of the UPPCL employees’ PF money was invested in DHFL during this period. The investment in DHFL was in violation of government guidelines that expressly said that PF money should not be invested in a financial institution that is not a scheduled bank.
Agarwal was succeeded in UPPCL by Alok Kumar, who continued investing in DHFL. Kumar remained at the helm of UPPCL for almost two years, reports said.
After the above disclosures, the state government had demanded a CBI inquiry. The CBI had questioned Sanjay Agarwal, Alok Kumar and Aparna in this case.
According to CBI, the UPPCL had invested more than Rs 4,100 crores in a scam-hit DHFL and other non-banking companies after the approval of then chairman Alok Kumar and managing director Aparna. He was the chairman of UPPCL from 2017 to 2019 and she was the managing director of UPPCL from 2017 to 2019.
In this case, more than half a dozen people, including AP Mishra, another MD of UPPCL, were arrested. First the investigation of this case was handed over to the EOW (Economic Offences Wing) and later it was transferred to the CBI. The CBI had started the investigation of the scam on March 5, 2020, on the basis of the FIR registered at the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow.