Retd IAS officer Agarwal moves Raj HC to quash FIR in JJM case

Jaipur: A day after Rajasthan's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against retired IAS officer Subodh Agarwal, the 1988-batch officer Thursday approached the high court, seeking quashing of the FIR registered against him in connection with the alleged Rs 900-crore scam in JJM tenders.The petition was filed through his counsel, advocate Deepak Chauhan, who contended that the FIR was lodged without a detailed preliminary inquiry and ignored crucial facts.
"In anti-corruption complaints, the preliminary inquiry is a must before lodging the FIR. He was named without following this process," said Chauhan."Agarwal's tenure in Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) began on April 18, 2022. However, the alleged irregularities relating to tenders under the Jal Jeevan Mission occurred prior to his posting. It was claimed that firms—Ganpati Tubewell and Shyam Tubewell—secured tenders worth hundreds of crores by submitting forged certificates purportedly issued by IRCON International, even before Agarwal assumed charge," said Chauhan while quoting the petition.As per the petition, Agarwal has claimed that before the financial bids of the accused firms—Ganpati Tubewell and Shyam Tubewell—were placed before him for the first time in the 844th Finance Commission meeting, bids worth approximately Rs 605 crores had already been approved by the Finance Commission headed by Sudhansh Pant (ACS, PHED from Jan 15, 2021 to April 18, 2022). "However, he (Pant) or the officers under him whimsically exonerated from the scope of investigation clearly demonstrates mala fides of investigation agency," the petition stated.The petition said that of the tenders linked to the Rs 900-crore scam mentioned in the FIR, approvals during Agarwal's tenure accounted for less than 10% of the total value. "Not a single payment was released to Ganpati Tubewell or Shyam Tubewell under the tenders approved by the Finance committee chaired by Agarwal," the petition said.The petition also highlights that upon receiving an email from IRCON International raising concerns about forged documents, Agarwal promptly constituted a high-level committee. "Following the report, all tenders awarded to the 2 firms were cancelled, they were blacklisted as per rules, and their earnest money deposits were forfeited," the petition said.