New Delhi: Days after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs granted sanction to prosecute him, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), Government of the National Capital Territory Delhi, registered a case against former minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Satyendra Jain. Jain was granted bail in October 2024, after spending nearly 30 months in jail in a money laundering case.
The ACB has accused Jain, who was PWD minister in the Delhi government before his arrest, of corruption in the Rs 571 crore CCTV project for the state. Jain has been accused of accepting a bribe of Rs 7 crore to waive off liquidated damages penalty of Rs 16 crore imposed on Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL).
Interestingly, BEL is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Defence. The ACB has not clarified whether action has been taken against any official of the PSU for paying the alleged bribe to Jain.
It has been mentioned by officials that the penalty was imposed due to delays by BEL to install 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras across 70 Assembly constituencies in Delhi in 2018-19. An official also said that the case was started against Jain after Manmohan Pandey, a former BEL employee, lodged a formal complaint, alleging that Jain had sought a bribe of Rs 7 crore to waive off the Rs 16 crore penalty.
Pandey had also said that, being a PSU, BEL could not pay the amount directly to Jain. Hence, a plan was being hatched to pay the bribe through vendors. According to the complaint, BEL was to install the 1.4 lakh cameras by November 22, 2019. However, only 16,000 cameras had been installed till then.
