MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate has summoned the executive directors of the Konkan and Vidarbha irrigation development corporations and the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation next week. They have been asked to remain present before the ED’s assistant director, along with all the records of tenders for irrigation projects, contracts, revised administrative approvals and bills paid to contractors for the period between 1999 and 2009.
During the period 1999 to 2009, NCP leader Ajit Pawar, who is now deputy chief minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, had been heading the state’s water resources department. Soon after the MVA led by Uddhav Thackeray came to power in November 2019, the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau had filed an affidavit before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court giving a clean chit in the irrigation scam to Ajit Pawar and another NCP leader, Sunil Tatkare.
Ajit Pawar and water resources minister Jayant Patil of the NCP did not respond to TOI’s message for a comment on the ED notice.
A senior bureaucrat confirmed to TOI that the ED’s notice, sent under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, states that the KIDC executive director should remain present before the ED’s authorized officer on October 21. The executive directors of the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation and Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation have to appear after him, the bureaucrat said.
When BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was leader of opposition in 2014, he had alleged that there was a Rs 70,000 crore scam in the state’s irrigation department. Subsequently, when he took over the state’s reins as CM, he on December 24, 2014 granted permission to the Anti-Corruption Bureau to conduct an open probe against Ajit Pawar and two other NCP leaders, Sunil Tatkare and Chhagan Bhujbal.
For five years, ACB conducted the probe but failed to nail Ajit Pawar or Tatkare. The ACB had set up a special investigation team for probing the irrigation scam, but barring naming a few contractors and officials of the irrigation department, the SIT failed to make progress. “The BJP government’s target was Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare, but it failed,” a senior NCP leader said.
The ACB did record their statements in connection with corruption in major irrigation projects in the Konkan region, but it was unable to register a criminal case against them owing to lack of evidence. On the basis of records of the water resources department for the period between 1999 and 2009, the ACB submitted its affidavit before HC saying no criminal liability was disclosed during the period under investigation. The ACB’s contention was that while Pawar and Tatkare were accused of graft,, from the records it was confirmed they had not committed any irregularity.