An FIR under the Prevention of Corruption (POC) Act was registered Tuesday against the accused and the firms. (File)The Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has booked four officials, including three Delhi Jal Board (DJB) engineers, and a private contractor for allegedly trying to release payment to three private firms despite them failing on delivery.
An FIR under the Prevention of Corruption (POC) Act was registered Tuesday against the accused and the firms.
ACB chief Arvind Deep confirmed that an FIR has been registered under sections 7 and 8 of the POC Act, and sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. “We are probing the role of the accused,” he said.
ACB officials said the FIR was registered after it received a complaint from the DJB’s vigilance wing.
“A few days ago, the ACB received a complaint, filed by the head of the vigilance wing, alleging that three engineers posted with the Shalimar Bagh and Bharat Nagar offices had fraudulently tried to release payment of goods, which had not been supplied to the department concerned,” said an officer.
The enquiry was launched after the vigilance wing received information from a “source”, following which they started checking all bills and whether goods had been delivered.
“The probe established that the department’s team did not check if the goods had been delivered… Prima facie, it appears the tender for the project had also been allotted in a biased manner,” the officer said.
Among the goods supposed to be delivered by the three firms were electrical equipment for water pump houses. However, no engineer visited these locations to check if the deliveries had been made.
Sources said the vigilance wing questioned an executive engineer, an assistant engineer and a junior engineer before filing a complaint with the ACB. “Payment of Rs 8.6 lakh was sought to be released for these firms, but it was stopped by vigilance officials,” a source said.
The Jal Board CEO had given approval to the vigilance team to approach ACB.
Sources said the ACB has already examined some officials, who will be questioned again in the coming days. They are also probing the role of the three firms, as well as the selection and tendering process.
