Jain booked for Rs 7 cr bribery in CCTV case

The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Delhi Government has booked former PWD Minister Satyendra Jain for allegedly accepting a Rs 7 crore bribe during his tenure to waive a Rs 16 crore Liquidated Damages (LD) penalty imposed on Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

Officials confirmed that the case has been registered under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and a comprehensive investigation is underway to expose the entire conspiracy.

Joint Commissioner of Police (ACB) Madhur Verma said the allegation surfaced from a news article which stated that a bribe of Rs 7 crore was arranged for Jain, who was the nodal officer for the project, in exchange of waiving liquidated damages worth Rs 16 crore.

“During verification, an officer of the BEL, well-versed with the facts of the case, supported these allegations and provided a detailed complaint in the instant matter,” Verma said.

In 2019, the Delhi government imposed Rs 16 crore liquidated damages penalty on BEL and its contractors for causing delay in the installation of CCTV cameras. However, as per the complaint, not only was the liquidated damages of Rs 16 crore were waived, but BEl was given additional orders for installing 1.4 lakh cameras.

The complainant further informed that the bribe amount of Rs 7 crore was paid through the same contractors who got an additional order of 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras.

“There have been many other instances of complaints stating that the entire CCTV installation project was carried out in a shoddy way and many CCTV cameras were dysfunctional even at the time of taking over of the project by the PWD,” the ACB said.

According to the officer, the bribe payments were made through different vendors by artificially enhancing the order values placed with these vendors. He said the relevant documents are being obtained from PWD and BEL and are being scrutinised.