New Delhi: The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of Delhi has officially registered an FIR against Aam Aadmi Party leader Satyendra Jain, the former Public Works Department (PWD) Minister of the Delhi government, in connection with a major corruption scandal involving a Rs. 571 crore CCTV installation project.
The case centers on allegations that Jain accepted a bribe of Rs. 7 crore to waive a Rs. 16 crore penalty imposed on Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) due to significant delays in the project.
The FIR was registered on 18 March, marking a significant development in a long-running investigation that began after the story was first broken by The Sunday Guardian in its 8 January 2023 edition (‘Bribe was paid to get penalty waived in Delhi CCTV project’). The press release issued by the ACB has also attributed the bribery episode being brought into the public domain by the report.
The report exposed a web of corruption involving BEL officials and Jain, citing whistleblowers Sumeet Krishna and Manmohan Pandey, two former BEL employees, along with documents alleging that the penalty for the delayed installation of 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras across 70 Delhi constituencies was waived in exchange for a bribe.
The story revealed that, in 2019, the Delhi government had imposed a Rs. 16 crore liquidated damages (LD) penalty on BEL due to delays in the installation of CCTV cameras, a key project aimed at bolstering surveillance across the capital.
According to the whistleblower account and supporting documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian, Jain had intervened to have the penalty waived off. The revelation suggested that the bribe of Rs. 7 crore was arranged through contractors involved in the project, who, in turn, inflated their contracts to facilitate the payment.
The details of the alleged bribery scheme were corroborated by a BEL officer who provided further information to the ACB, confirming that the bribe was paid through inflated orders placed with the same contractors who received additional work from BEL. These contractors were said to have been awarded extra work on the CCTV installation project following Jain’s intervention to waive off the penalty.
In the wake of the initial reporting, the office of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi ordered an official probe into the matter in July 2024 and asked Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch, led by Madhur Verma, to carry out the investigation. The said FIR was filed now after the ACB found substantial grounds in its initial investigation.
During the inquiry, it was found that the quality of the CCTV installation was far below expectations, with reports indicating that many cameras were non-functional at the time of project handover. The installation, intended to cover 70 constituencies with a network of 1.4 lakh cameras, had been plagued by delays, which ultimately led to the imposition of the penalty on BEL. However, the penalty was mysteriously waived, and the project was granted further extensions, along with additional work orders.
The ACB’s FIR, filed under sections 7 and 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (POC Act), along with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), accuses Jain of accepting the bribe and abusing his position to benefit BEL and its contractors. The investigation also implicated BEL officials and other Delhi PWD personnel who may have been involved in the illicit dealings.