Irregularities in Jal Jeevan Mission: ED conducts searches on properties of Rajasthan ex-PHED minister Mahesh Joshi

As per ED officials, it had initiated investigation on the basis of the ACB FIR wherein Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Messers Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, as well as Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Messers Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company and others were involved in bribing public servants “in order to obtain illegal protection, obtaining tenders, getting bills sanctioned and covering up irregularities in respect of work executed by them in respect of various tenders received by them from PHED department.”

It said that the suspects were also involved in the purchase of stolen goods from Haryana for using the same in their tenders/contracts and had also submitted fake work completion letters from IRCON — a government company — to get PHED contracts.

The ED then conducted raids at various locations in Jaipur, Alwar, Neemrana, Behror and Shahpura under PMLA on September 1 last year. Then on September 12, it conducted search operations at several bank lockers held by individuals allegedly involved in the case.

However, the biggest searches took place on November 3, when ED officials conducted searches on properties linked to Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Subodh Agarwal and some other PHED officials. As ACS, Agarwal held the charge for PHED and Ground Water Department, Water Resources Department, and State Water Resources Planning Department. Additionally, then minister Joshi’s office in the secretariat was also searched by ED personnel. The other officials who were raided included those with the designation of Chief Engineer, Engineer, and Executive Engineer with the PHED department, among others. In the searches so far, ED has seized money in crores, a gold bar, as well as various digital evidences. As of November 2023, the total seizure in the case stood at Rs 11.03 crore, including gold/silver worth Rs 6.50 crore.

Months before the raids, Kirodi Lal Meena, then BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP, had claimed that the scam in PHED was worth Rs 20,000 crore, and claimed that Joshi, ACS Subodh Agarwal and others were involved in it.

Joshi has been one of the prominent leaders of the Gehlot camp. He was Gehlot’s Man Friday during the 2020 political crisis and from herding MLAs into hotels as the Chief Whip to lodging complaints with the Special Operations Group of Rajasthan Police on the basis of the audio clips, he had emerged as a key player, as Gehlot staved off threats from within the party and without. Then in September 2022, he had emerged as one of the architects of the boycott of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meet, apparently called to empower the high command to choose the next CM, said to have been Sachin Pilot.

Following protests by the Pilot camp and the PHED case, Joshi was dropped as a candidate from Jaipur’s Hawa Mahal constituency last year. Party had instead fielded long time party worker R R Tiwari who lost by a narrow margin to BJP’s Balmukundacharya.