The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi referred the matter of alleged Rs 850 crore scam in the land acquisition for the Dwarka Expressway to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday.
The move comes a couple of days after vigilance minister Atishi submitted a 650+ page preliminary investigation report to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleging that Delhi chief secretary Naresh Kumar played an instrumental role in benefitting the company linked to his son, Karan Chauhan, with “illicit profit” of Rs 850 crore.
According to sources, the preliminary report alleged Naresh Kumar’s involvement in “enhancing an exorbitant compensation award” for land in Bamnoli village with the aim to provide illicit profits to a company linked to his son. The report, sources said, reveals “incriminating facts” and “connections and the chronology given the prima facie appearance of complicity” of Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar with District Magistrate South West Hemant Kumar and the landowners in the land acquisition on the Dwarka Expressway.
According to sources, the preliminary investigative report also unveils a conspiracy by senior officers of Delhi’s Vigilance Department including the chief secretary to undervalue the scale of the scam at Rs 312 crore. The actual compensation award would have resulted in an illicit gain of Rs 850 crore to the beneficiaries, sources said.
The report states, “Being the most salient fact pertaining to this scam, the possibility of this being an oversight by all the officers of the DOV that signed on the report, including the Chief Vigilance Officer and Chief Secretary, Naresh Kumar, seems suspect. This prima-facie points to an attempt to hide the scale of this corruption so as to prevent scrutiny on persons involved in giving effect to it.”
Vigilance minister Atishi recommended the immediate removal of Naresh Kumar and Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar to ensure that they do not influence the probe. Atishi also asked for files related to this case may be seized so to prevent “tampering or destruction of evidence”. The minister also recommended disciplinary proceedings be initiated against the chief secretary and the divisional commissioner. She further recommended that the report be sent to the CBI to expand the scope of the existing inquiry to investigate the roles of the chief secretary and the divisional commissioner along with that of Hemant Kumar and the landowners.
Additionally, she had also asked for a reference to be made to the ED “apprising it of the likelihood of the commission of offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 in the chain of transactions from the purchase of the land by the landowners in 2015 leading up to the illegal compensation awarded for its acquisition in 2023”.
Responding to these charges, the Delhi Chief Secretary had said, “On what basis are such allegations being made? If the landowners had purchased the land in 2015 at just 7% of the market rate, what was done by the Chief Minister, Revenue Minister, Vigilance Minister and officers concerned since 2015? Whether there were any interests of these persons in such alleged undervalued sale/purchase?”
The chief secretary had also said, “The Government of India has already referred this case of passing awards by arbitrator Hemant Kumar to the CBI …is all this being done to save Hemant Kumar by his political bosses and other vested interests? Are they fearful that Hemant Kumar will spill the beans before the CBI? Let the CBI/ED also investigate such conspiracy being done by vested interests, including public authorities, to malign the Chief Secretary…let the CBI call Atishi who has all the documents and has done an alleged preliminary enquiry, so that the role of all conspirators can be brought out”.
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