Irrigation scam: ACB endorses its Nov clean chit to Ajit Pawar

The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) endorsed the clean chit given last month to former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in the multi-crore irrigation scam

The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) endorsed the clean chit given last month to former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in the multi-crore irrigation scam in Vidarbha.

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Parambir Singh, director-general of Maharashtra ACB, filed an affidavit in the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) dated December 19, in response to two petitioners.

Singh’s affidavit also reasoned why this clean chit marked a U-turn from the investigating agency’s first affidavit on November 26 last year, which had blamed Pawar for his involvement in the scam.

He has indirectly discredited his predecessor Sanjay Barve’s affidavit, which was filed on November 26, 2018, saying it had been filed before any of the officials had completed inquiries in any of the cases.

Last month, a day after the Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government fell, ACB had filed two affidavits in the court via superintendents of police of Nagpur and Amravati branches, on November 27.

Hindustan Times had broken the story about the affidavits on December 6.

Both these affidavits had ruled out any criminal liability on part of Pawar in the scam; these similarly worded affidavits contradicted or glossed over the 2018 affidavit filed by Barve.

The latest affidavit comes just ahead of the Cabinet expansion of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, when Pawar is expected to take oath as the deputy chief minister.

The affidavit filed by Singh has also asked the court to reject the demand by one of the petitioners, Jan Manch, to transfer the case to another investigation agency (CBI).

It said the ACB had been diligently investigating the scam. It also ruled out the involvement of Pawar in four specific projects in Amravati as alleged by another petitioner, Atul Jagtap.

The affidavit was filed after the petitioners questioned why the two ACB affidavits had not been filed by a senior officer of the rank of DG.

Singh said that the two affidavits were based on investigation reports by inquiry officers and he had approved them on November 27 after being “personally satisfied with the correctness of the content”.

On Barve’s affidavit, Singh claimed the conclusions of the affidavit were “inferences drawn by him and on his interpretation of material before him.’’

The latest sworn document also said that Barve’s affidavit had overlooked a report by Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC), filed in March 2018. All this, Singh said, brought a “decisive change to the entire complexion of the case, particularly with the reference to the role of Pawar’’.

Besides this overlooked VIDC report, Singh referred to two communications from the water resources department (WRD) dated May 7 and June 11 this year, as well as Pawar’s written responses to a questionnaire on September 9 and more recently, on December 3.

The affidavit does not spell out contents of Pawar’s written responses or the VIDC report.

Pawar is under the scanner over allegations of having granted arbitrary cost escalations to irrigation projects and doling out mobilisation advances to contractors.

The May 7 letter stated that the executive director of VIDC should have informed Pawar of any departure from observance of rules of business. The June 6 letter said that there is no provision in law for VIDC to have referred the acceptance of tender cost to any other authority. Both these letters in a way absolve Pawar of any responsibility even though he had cleared the projects. The WRD gave a latest letter on December 3, stating that all opinions conveyed by it regarding questions asked by the ACB were correct.

The affidavit repeated that no criminal liability had been found against Pawar in these investigations. The investigations were based on 102 tenders in Nagpur and 57 tenders in Amravati, many of which were of high value. The ACB is investigating as many as 2654 tenders across 45 projects in Vidarbha, said the affidavit. While the investigations in these tenders is likely to go on for a long time, this clean chit to Pawar is likely to be a template in all these cases.

“This is a clean chit given solely on the basis of communication by WRD, VIDC and Pawar, all of whom are respondents in this petition. They have not spelt out what is this new material evidence that has made them change their stance from accusing Pawar to clearing his name,’’ said Sharad Patil of Jan manch.

Barve had pointed a finger at Pawar for having being part of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the government in the irrigation scam.

Leader of Opposition, Devendra Fadnavis, said that the court will not accept this affidavit and if required, BJP would intervene.

“This is a summary affidavit and while contradicting the 2018 affidavit (which elaborated how exactly things happened), does not provide any supporting evidence. ED (VIDC) is not equivalent to the Secretary of a Department. Officials alone cannot be held responsible.”