Delhi Police transfers complaint against Arvind Kejriwal to ACB in alleged PWD scam

A criminal complaint filed against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his brother-in-law and a government official in the alleged PWD scam has been transferred to the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), Delhi Police told a city court on Saturday.

Delhi Police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) submitted a report before Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra stating that it has enquired into the complaint and has now transferred it to the ACB.

“The complaint has been transferred to Anti Corruption Branch... for further necessary action at their end,” EOW said in its report.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on the complaint on March 23.

The court was hearing a complaint filed by founder of Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO) Rahul Sharma, for direction to police to lodge an FIR against Kejriwal, his brother-in-law Surender Bansal, proprietor of a construction firm, and a public servant for alleged irregularities in the grant of contracts for roads and sewer lines in Delhi.

Advocate Kislay Pandey, who filed the plea on behalf of the complainant, has alleged “deep-rooted corruption” and said the documents showed no material was actually purchased for executing the projects.

Another court had earlier dismissed Bansal’s plea to transfer the matter from the court of magistrate Malhotra, saying the application was not maintainable.

The EOW had earlier also filed a status report before the court seeking time to conclude its enquiry into allegations of irregularities in grant of contracts for roads and sewer lines in the city.

The complainant has alleged documents showing purchase of material were “concocted and forged”, and a loss of over Rs 10 crore had been caused to the public exchequer.

The plea demanded that the role of the chief minister be investigated as he had allegedly caused substantive gains to Bansal and others by using his influence.

The complainant alleged that Bansal operated through several dummy firms to obtain the government contracts in connivance with several senior PWD officials. These contracts never got executed “whereas shockingly all the payments were cleared under the pressure from Kejriwal”.