Satyendar Jain links his arrest to Punjab polls; ACB seeks judicial custody

Former Delhi minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday (August 19) said his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) was linked to the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls and called it "politics".

AAP leader Jain and former Delhi Jal Board (DJB) CEO Udit Prakash Rai were among six persons arrested by the ACB in connection with an alleged corruption case involving the tendering process for sewage treatment plant projects of the DJB, an officer said on Tuesday.

What Jain said

"This is done because the Punjab election is coming up… this is politics," Jain, who is also AAP's co-in-charge for Punjab, said while being taken to the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi.

Also read: Kejriwal calls Satyendar Jain's arrest 'BJP's vendetta', says case will be proved fake

The other arrested accused are Ankit Srivastava, a former contractual consultant with the DJB, and private persons Nagendra Yadav, Raja Kumar Kurra and Pankaj Verma, the ACB said in a statement.

The case was registered on May 11, 2024, on a complaint by the Directorate of Vigilance over alleged large-scale irregularities, manipulation of tender conditions and criminal conspiracy in the tendering process related to the augmentation and upgradation of sewage treatment plants of the DJB.

Court reserves order

In the court, the ACB sought judicial custody of five accused, including Jain, while seeking two days of police custody for Srivastava. On the other hand, the defence has filed bail pleas, calling the arrests completely illegal. After hearing arguments from both sides, the court reserved its order.

The ACB alleged that there were major irregularities in the tender for the upgradation of the sewage treatment plant (STP). According to the investigating agency, the tender conditions were altered to restrict competition and favour a particular private company.

It claimed that banking and hawala transactions worth around Rs 5 crore took place in the case. The agency also alleged that lakhs of rupees were transferred through a company to Rai, and his relatives, and that the money was used to purchase property.

Jain: ‘I was in jail at the time’

Jain personally put forward his case before the court, saying that cleaning the Yamuna river was an electoral promise of the AAP government and that this was the reason for the decision to increase the capacity of the existing STPs. He said he was not a technical expert and had to rely on the information provided by officials.

“I was a minister holding eight portfolios. Why would I know the technical aspects? I had to rely on experts,” Jain told the court.

Jain said that when the tender process was completed, he was in jail without being assigned any department and no file had come to him. He alleged that he was being forcibly made the main accused in the case.

He was also arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case in May 2022.

Lawyer questions manner of arrest

Jain's lawyer, N Hariharan, argued that the arrest was made 27 months after the FIR was registered. He said the ED had already filed a chargesheet in the case without making any arrests. Despite fully cooperating with the investigation, Jain was arrested without any concrete reason, he argued.

Meanwhile, Srivastava's lawyer, Rajat Bhardwaj, questioned the timing of the arrest. He said that when his client had been consistently joining the investigation on August 3 and 5, what had suddenly changed that made his arrest necessary?

(This article was originally published in The Federal Desh)