In fresh trouble for the AAP former ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, President Droupadi Murmu has granted prosecution sanctions against them in the Rs 1,300 Crore scam in construction of classrooms in Delhi government schools, during their tenure as ministers in the national Capital.
In official communications to the office of Lieutenant Governor of the NCT of Delhi, the President through the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), said, the required permission to register an FIR and institute a probe against then education minister Manish Sisodia and then public works department (PWD) minister Satyendar Jain is granted.
Under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) prosecution of former PWD minister, Satyendra Jain has been ordered. The file number 17A/4/DOV/2021 has been moved ahead as further action will it take it forward. The MHA’s move comes after reviewing findings from the Department of Vigilance (DoV)’s investigation into alleged financial irregularities linked to them. In 2022, the Delhi government’s vigilance directorate recommended a probe into the alleged scam and submitted a report to the chief secretary.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), in a report dated February 17, 2020, highlighted “glaring irregularities” in the construction of over 2,400 classrooms in Delhi government schools by the Public Works Department (PWD).
It is alleged that a huge scam to the tune of over Rs 2,000 Crore have been carried out in NCT of Delhi for the construction of School Rooms/Buildings at a highly inflated cost by the Govt, of NCT of Delhi. The scam involves construction of around 12,748 School Rooms at a very high and inflated construction cost. The total cost incurred for constructing the school rooms/buildings is around Rs 2,892.65 Crore. The school rooms /buildings are being allegedly constructed at the rate of Rs 8,800 Sqft whereas it is common knowledge that average construction cost (even for a builder of flats) is around Rs 15,00 Sqft The lump sum cost for constructing a school room/building as per the tender awarded is around Rs 24.86 Lakh per room, whereas such rooms are easily constructed at Delhi by/through any person at around Rs 5 Lakh per room.
The prices have been inflated almost to the tune of 05 times to defraud the general public and the taxpayer by siphoning off money from the public exchequer in grab of construction cost. Even a 5-star Hotel, top ultra-luxury quality construction is around Rs 5000/- to Rs 5500/- Sq. ft. in spite of severely inflated and cheap material is being used to carry out the construction.
The examination of documents supplied by the complainants following facts have been noticed which amount to violation of rules and overturning the decision already taken in the matter of construction of school rooms/buildings.
The CVC stated in its report that the role of Sosodia and Jain need to be thoroughly investigated as such a huge scam would have not been carried out without the ministers in charge of respective departments involved in the construction either being the chief conspirators themselves or without them finding something amiss when five times the normal construction cost is being charged for such a large number of school rooms/buildings.
“In some cases rules were not followed properly like undue advantage was given to contractors by making premature payment without following the codal formalities. CVC guidelines were not followed properly for example, adopted reacher specification instead of normal specification without accessing financial implication. Audit has also observed that deviation in expenditure was not approved by the competent authority,” the CVC stated in the report.
Reacting to this, AAP leader and former Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj accused that the BJP has no interest or intentions to fulfil its promises to the people of Delhi. “Their only agenda is to engage people of Delhi in witch-hunting the political rivals to stifle the voice of people. At every beaurocratic stage, every office deliberately leaks the news as if some new case has been filed. The file reaching the Lieutenant Governor, then approval by LG, then approval by MHA, then approval by President. This is nothing but a usual process,” he said.