The Enforcement Directorate has made a startling allegation, asserting that money obtained from suspected corruption linked to a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) contract was funnelled as election funds to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In a statement released by the central agency, it was disclosed that incriminating documents, digital evidence, valuables totalling Rs 1.97 crore, and foreign currency amounting to Rs 4 lakh were confiscated during the raids conducted in relation to this case on Tuesday.

As part of its money laundering investigation, the ED conducted raids on the residences of Bibhav Kumar, personal assistant to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, AAP Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta, and several others.

According to the ED, the bribe money was also passed on as “election funds” to the AAP.

The ED had initiated the investigations based on an FIR registered by the CBI for offences related to corruption or bribery in the DJB. “The FIR alleged that Jagdish Kumar Arora, the then Chief Engineer of the DJB, awarded certain contract in DJB to M/s NKG Infrastructure Ltd for a total cost of Rs 38 crore despite the fact that the company did not meet the technical eligibility criteria,” a spokesperson of the ED said.

Last year, on July 24 and November 17, the ED carried out searches and seized numerous digital pieces of evidence related to the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) corruption case. On January 31 of this year, Arora and Anil Kumar Aggarwal were arrested, and the ED secured their custody until February 10.

“The ED investigation has revealed that M/s NKG Infrastructure Ltd obtained the bid by submitting forged/fake/false documents. Arora was aware of the fact that the company does not meet the technical eligibility and he received a bribe amount both in cash and in his bank accounts,” the spokesperson alleged.

The spokesperson further said, “Investigations and digital evidence also revealed that Arora passed on the bribe funds to various persons connected with managing the affairs of the DJB, including persons connected with the Aam Aadmi Party. Bribe amounts were also passed on as Election Funds to the AAP.”

“The ED investigation further revealed that the contract of the DJB was awarded at highly inflated rates so that the bribes could be collected from the contractors from the inflated cost of the contract. As against the contract value of Rs 38 crore, only about Rs 17 crore was spent towards the contract and the remaining amounts were siphoned off in guise of various fake expenses. Such fake expenses were booked for bribes and election funds,” the spokesperson said.

The ED had earlier conducted searches in July as well as November 2023 and had seized various digital evidence. 

Image source: PTI