CBI files 2 graft cases against Noida ex-CE

The CBI on Tuesday registered two cases against Yadav Singh — former Chief Engineer of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway — his family members and associates — for alleged corruption and possession of disproportionate assets. The agency sleuths also carried out searches at 16 locations, including 13 in Noida/Greater Noida and one each at lucknow, Agra and Ferozabad. 

The CBI move follows a direction from the lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court which had asked the agency to conduct an investigation into allegations of corruption and amassing of unaccounted wealth by Yadav Singh and his family. In the first case, Singh and his associates have been booked for criminal conspiracy (120-B of the IPC) and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI has named Singh, his wife Kusum lata, daughter Garima Bhushan and son Sunny Yadav and Rajender Minocha in this case for possession of disproportionate assets, agency sources said. 

Singh, his family members, and associates allegedly amassed huge movable and immovable assets disproportionate to their known sources of income during the period 2009-2014.The CBI sources said it during searches by Income Tax department in November, 2014 several incriminating documents were recovered from several premises of Singh.

“The scrutiny of ITRs and other connecting records have allegedly revealed that during the period 2009-2014, the total likely savings of the family of then Chief Engineer was Rs 1.70 crore (approx) whereas they were in possession of immovable property worth Rs 3.60 crore (approx). Besides, an amount of Rs 10 crore (approx) was allegedly recovered from one of his associates, which also reportedly belonged to then Chief Engineer,” the CBI said in a statement. 

The second case relates to allegations of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and other sections of the IPC and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act against Singh and unknown persons.

In this case, Yadav is alleged to have entered into criminal conspiracy with unknown private persons firms and awarded various contracts without following the laid down procedures and thereby caused undue pecuniary gain to the tune of crores of rupees to private firms and to himself. “The local police had also registered a FIR No 371 at Police Station Sector 39, Noida (Uttar Pradesh) on June 13, 2012. The FIR ended in closure and a Final report was filed in the trial court by the local police on January 30, 2014 which was accepted by the court on November 27, 2014,” the agency added. 

The High Court had ordered a CBI probe on the petition of activist Nutan Thakur, wife of suspended UP Police Inspector General Amitabh Thakur, alleging Singh had enjoyed plum postings under the regimes of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and incumbent Akhilesh Yadav, and the State government was not acting against him.

Singh had executed projects worth around Rs 8,000 crore in Noida in the last 12 years, the Noida authority has said in a report. The figure excludes Singh’s involvement in the authority’s land allotment process for commercial, industrial and residential projects, the PIl alleged.Singh was involved in infrastructure projects, including Ganga water supply, sewage pipelines, drainage, hospitals, parks and the metro.

In the electrical department of these authorities, Singh had executed bonds of more than Rs 500 crore in last nine years. Signing a bond means releasing funds to firms/contractors after work is executed.After the tax raids on Singh and companies related to his wife Kusum lata, the authority had cancelled several projects.Singh was Engineer-in-Chief of the Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway Authorities for 17 days, where he gave the go-ahead for 15 public projects worth several crores - all cancelled after the raids.

Singh has since been removed from his post and attached to the office of the CEO. But he has remained absent without applying for leave, prompting the authority to issue him a show-cause notice. Singh was appointed as Engineer-in-Chief of Noida during Mayawati regime in 2002.