A Delhi court expressed unhappiness over an “unsatisfactory” report of the Anti-Corruption Branch on threat perception to the complainants in the alleged PWD scam in which a criminal plea has been filed against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his relative.
Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra said no efforts have been made by the agency to contact the complainants or the SHOs and officials of police stations where three FIRs have already been registered regarding the alleged threat.
The court, which had asked the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) to file a report after assessing the threat perception, directed the Additional Commissioner of Police of the ACB to consider these factors and submit a detailed assessment report by April 11, the next date of hearing.
“No efforts have been made to contact these persons (complainants). There is no whisper in the report regarding the threat perception to the family members of the complainant (Rahul Sharma).
“No efforts have been made to contact the SHOs/IOs of the three FIRs to take account of the situation. No further attempt is made to seek reply from the office of the DCP (north west) regarding the assessment made by them so far.
Accordingly, I am of the opinion that the report submitted is unsatisfactory,” the magistrate said and directed that a copy of its order be sent to the Additional CP (ACB) for compliance.
Three FIRs have already been registered by the three complainants, including Sharma, at different police stations in Delhi and Noida on the allegations of threat and assault.
The ACB said in its status report that it has intimated the police of Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Budh Nagar and the DCP of northeast Delhi to assess the threat perception and provide security to Sharma.
It also annexed the reply of Gautam Budh Nagar’s Senior Superintendent of Police stating that Sharma was not available at his house and no threat perception has surfaced.
The court had earlier directed the ACB to provide security to the complainants, observing that the plea has been filed against “influential persons” and security of the complainants are of “paramount importance”.
The court had earlier also asked the Delhi Police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) to assess the threat perception and provide security to the complainants but no action has been taken and later the case was transferred to the ACB.
The court was hearing a complaint filed by Rahul Sharma, the founder of Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO), 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, appearing for Sharma, has alleged “deep-rooted corruption” and said the documents showed no material was actually purchased for executing the projects.
The complainant has alleged that documents showing purchase of material were “concocted and forged”, and a loss of over Rs 10 crore has been caused to the public exchequer.
The complainant alleged that Bansal operated through several dummy firms to obtain government contracts with the connivance of several senior PWD officials.
These contracts never got executed “whereas shockingly all the payments were cleared under pressure from Kejriwal”, he alleged.
( Source – PTI )
