The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state government on Wednesday registered a case against concerned officers and employees of four departments of the state government, seven infrastructure companies and four Information Technology (IT) companies in connection with the multi-crore e-tendering scam.
The FIR mentions certain unknown politicians. The e-tendering scam took place during the previous BJP government and names of certain bureaucrats, considered close to the previous dispensation had come up in connection with it.
The action comes two days after the Income Tax department searched the premises of family members and aides of CM Kamal Nath.
The EOW said that the FIR was registered on the basis of evidence found during the investigation, after technical evidence was obtained from the computer emergency response team (CERT), New Delhi.
It added that it has been found that three tenders of the MP Jal Nigam, three tenders of the Public Works Department (PWD), two tenders of the Water Resources Department, one tender of the MP Road Development Corporation, totaling nine tenders worth Rs 3,000 crore were tampered with, to benefit certain contractors.
The FIR also covers the directors of private infrastructure firms, GVPR Ltd, Max Mentena, The Hume Pipe Ltd, JMC Ltd, Sorthia Belji Ltd, Madhav Infra Project Ltd, and M/s Ramkumar Narwani Ltd.
Besides, officials of IT companies involved in managing the tendering platform, Osmo IT Solutions Ltd, MP State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd, Antares Ltd, and TCS Ltd have also been booked.
Cases have been registered under sections 420, 468, 471 and 120 B of IPC, section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, and sections 7 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The scam came to light when Manish Singh, posted as Principal Secretary, Science and Technology probed the matter. He was soon transferred out when he flagged the issue.
The previous Shivraj Singh Chouhan government had referred the matter to the EOW but no case had been registered.
On Sunday, income tax authorities had searched the premises of CM Kamal Nath’s nephew Ratul Puri, CM’s former aides RK Mighlani and Praveen Kakkar, besides Ashwini Sharma and Prateek Joshi in 52 operations across the country.
The IT department in a press note had claimed it had found unaccounted wealth to the tune of Rs 281 crore including a trail leading to the headquarters of a prominent political party.