ED makes fresh arrest in Rajasthan’s Jal Jeevan Mission case

Jaipur, July 17

The Enforcement Directorate has made a fresh arrest in connection with its money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme being implemented in Rajasthan, officials said on Wednesday.

Sanjay Badaya, an alleged middleman, was taken into custody on Tuesday after questioning at the agency office here, they said.

The central government’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through household tap connections and is being implemented in Rajasthan by the state’s Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department.

This is the fourth arrest in the case.

The Central agency had earlier arrested three people—Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company, Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, and Piyush Jain.

The agency’s investigation found that Padamchand Jain, Mittal and others were involved in giving bribes to public servants to obtain illegal protection, tenders, getting bills sanctioned and covering up irregularities in works executed by them in respect of various tenders they received from the PHED.

The suspects were also involved in the purchase of stolen goods from Haryana for using them in their tenders and had also submitted “fake” work completion letters from IRCON to get PHED contracts, the agency claimed.

The ED’s money-laundering case stems from an FIR registered by Rajasthan’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in which Padamchand Jain, Mahesh Mittal, Piyush Jain and others were charged.

Premises in Jaipur and Dausa, including the residential and official premises of senior PHE Department officials, former Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi and former additional chief secretary Subodh Agarwal, have been searched by the ED in connection with the probe. Assets worth Rs 11.03 crore have been attached in the case so far.