The Delhi government's Anti-Corruption Branch has registered a case against former public works department minister and senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Satyendar Jain over alleged corruption in a Rs 571-crore CCTV project, an official said on Wednesday.
According to the ACB, Jain allegedly accepted a bribe of Rs 7 crore to waive the liquidated damages penalty of Rs 16 crore imposed on Bharat Electronics Limited.
The project, which was executed when he was a PWD minister in the previous Arvind Kejriwal government, was related to the installation of 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras across all 70 assembly constituencies.
"Jain is accused of arbitrarily waiving liquidated damages worth Rs 16 crore imposed on BEL for delays in installing CCTV cameras across Delhi.
"The waiver was allegedly granted after receiving a Rs 7-crore bribe," joint commissioner of police Madhur Verma said in a statement.
The FIR was registered on Tuesday after obtaining prior sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act from the competent authority.
Multiple complaints have suggested that the project was executed in a shoddy manner, with several cameras found to be non-functional at the time of hand over, Verma said.
A political tussle erupted following the FIR against the former PWD minister, with both the ruling BJP and the opposition AAP targeting each other.
Although there was no immediate response from Jain, his Aam Aadmi Party called it a case of "political witch-hunt". On his part, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva accused Jain of accepting a bribe of Rs 7 crore.
According to the statement issued by the ACB, the case is based on a news report which claimed that a bribe of Rs 7 crore was arranged for Jain, who was the nodal officer for the CCTV project, in exchange for waiving penalties imposed on BEL and its contractors.
The penalties were initially levied in August 2019 by the then AAP government due to significant delays in the installation of 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras across Delhi's 70 assembly constituencies.
During verification, a BEL officer provided a detailed complaint supporting the allegations. The complaint further alleged that in addition to waiving the penalties, additional orders for 1.4 lakh more CCTV cameras were awarded to BEL, Verma said.
The bribe was allegedly routed through contractors who received the additional camera installation orders. Payments were reportedly made by inflating vendor order values, he said.
The ACB is in the process of scrutinising relevant documents from the public works department and BEL. A case has been registered under sections 7 (offence related to public servant being bribed) and 13(1)(a) (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, he added.
A comprehensive investigation has been launched to determine the full extent of the conspiracy and the involvement of PWD officials and BEL executives, the statement said.
Meanwhile, former Delhi chief minister and senior AAP leader Atishi slammed the BJP, accusing the saffron party of framing Jain in a false case.
In a post on X, she said, "When investigating agencies leave their work and start political witch-hunting on the orders of the boss..."
She also shared a document highlighting a reply by the BJP-led Centre in Parliament, which claimed that out of the 193 cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against political leaders in the past 10 years, only two resulted in convictions.
In a video post on X, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva alleged that the previous government led by Kejriwal covered up the corruption case for years.
"In 2017-18, the Kejriwal government awarded a contract of Rs 571 crore to Bharat Electronics Limited for installing CCTV cameras in Delhi. Due to delays, a penalty of Rs 16 crore was imposed in 2019 but Satyendar Jain waived it after taking Rs 7 crore bribe. The ACB completed its investigation in 2023 but the FIR was delayed due to AAP's cover-up act," Sachdeva claimed.
Another senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh in a statement accused the BJP-led central government of again preparing a false case against Jain.
"The Modi government is always trying to harass the Aam Aadmi Party, this is another attempt in the same sequence," Singh alleged.
The fresh case has added to Jain's legal troubles.
On March 2, the CBI informed a special court that it had secured approval from the Delhi lieutenant governor to prosecute Jain in a disproportionate assets case.
The ED had arrested Jain in a money-laundering case linked to alleged hawala transactions in May 2022. He was granted bail in October 2024.
Jain, who was a key AAP leader and minister in the previous government, faced a political setback in the recent assembly elections in Delhi, losing the Shakur Basti seat to BJP's Karnail Singh by nearly 21,000 votes.
The BJP also claimed a landslide victory in Delhi, securing 48 out of 70 seats, leaving AAP with just 22.
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