NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed the bail pleas of two accused in the Delhi Jal Board money laundering case.
The court of Bhupendra Singh dismissed the bail pleas of Subcontractor Anil Kumar Agarwal and Jagdish Kumar Arora, former Chief Engineer of the board. Both the accused sought regular bail in the matter, saying the trial would take a long time to complete.
"The court sees no impediment for the trial to move on swiftly, more so when detailed, thorough arguments covering almost all the aspects, that spread over many weeks, have been advanced on behalf of the applicant/accused.As such, arguments on the point of charge should not consume much time. Moreover, with only 35 witnesses cited in the complaint, the court sees no reason for the trial not getting completed within a reasonable time," said the court.
They were charge-sheeted along with other accused by the ED, linked to the procurement of electromagnetic meters for the board.
The money laundering case stems from an FIR lodged by the CBI stating that Arora awarded a DJB contract to NKG Infrastructure Limited for a total cost of Rs 38 crore even though the company failed the technical eligibility criteria.
On April 3, the same court took cognisance of the chargesheet filed in the case. The 8,000-page-long prosecution complaint (chargesheet) with 140 operational pages, apart from annexures, was filed by the agency before a special court on March 28.
Former DJB Chief Engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora, Contractor Anil Kumar Agarwal, former NBCC General Manager D K Mittal, Tejinder Pal Singh, and NKG Infrastructure Limited have been named as the accused in the chargesheet.
According to the chargesheet, the DJB probe was related to money laundering charges in a July 2022 case. The board allegedly gave undue advantages to a company for the supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of electromagnetic flow meters in connivance with officials of the NBCC (India) Limited.
The agency arrested Arora and Agarwal on January 31, 2024, in connection with money laundering investigations initiated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 in the case.
The agency alleged that bribe money generated from corruption in a contract issued by the DJB was passed on as election funds to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi.
The money laundering case stems from an FIR lodged by the CBI stating that Arora awarded a DJB contract to NKG Infrastructure Limited for a total cost of Rs 38 crore even though the company failed the technical eligibility criteria.
NKG Infrastructure Limited got the contract by submitting forged documents, and Arora was aware of the fact that the company did not meet the technical eligibility, the agency alleges.
According to the ED, Arora received a bribe after awarding the contract to NKG Infrastructure Limited and passed on the money to various people managing the DJB affairs, including people from the AAP.