The CBI on Monday filed a chargesheet against seven people, including former Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Governor Satya Pal Malik, in a case of alleged corruption in the award of a contract for a hydel project in Kishtwar district. The agency had earlier examined Malik as a witness. In fact, it was on Malik’s allegations that the case was first registered in 2022. The former Governor, 78, who has been sharply critical of the BJP in recent years, is currently admitted in New Delhi’s RML Hospital with a urinary infection and sepsis. What Malik alleged In October 2021, two years after leaving office as J&K Governor, Malik claimed he had been offered Rs 300 crore in bribes to clear two files: one concerning “Ambani’’ and the other an “RSS functionary’’. “One of the secretaries told me that these are shady deals, but he can get Rs 150 crore each. I told him that I had come to J&K with five kurta-pajamas and would leave with that,” Malik said at an event in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan. Malik was referring to the rollout of a group health insurance policy for government employees, for which the J&K government had tied up with Anil Ambani’s Reliance General Insurance Private Ltd (RGIPL), and alleged irregularities in the award of a contract for civil works in the Kiru Hydro Electric Project (HEP) on the Chenab river. Six months after Malik made these allegations, J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said that the government had decided to hand over the probe in these cases to the CBI. The cases were formally referred to the agency on March 23, 2022, after which the CBI registered two separate FIRs. J&K medical insurance case After the existing insurance scheme with ICICI Lombard came to an end in 2017, the J&K government floated tenders for a better and more expansive scheme for its employees. Upon receiving only one bid, the government hired Trinity Reinsurance Brokers Ltd (TRBL) to float tenders on its behalf. This time, seven companies bid, and RGIPL was awarded the contract in September 2018, days after Malik assumed office as Governor, on L1 basis. (Its quoted annual premium of Rs 8,777 was the lowest.) The scheme became operational on October 1, and the J&K government disbursed Rs 61 crore to RGIPL as advance payment. This transfer, allegedly made “without the necessary approvals of the Chief Secretary or the Governor”, raised red flags in Raj Bhawan, The Indian Express had reported in 2018. Amid protests by government employees about high premiums and the absence of an opt-out, Malik cancelled the deal, saying “it was full of fraud”. Sources in the J&K government had told The Indian Express in 2018 that TRBL was allegedly a front for a major business conglomerate, and that “changes were made [to the tender process] to accommodate Reliance”. In 2021, the J&K Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) said “no irregularity has been found in the matter”, but recommended the recovery of Rs 44 crore from RGIPL since the scheme was cancelled less than a month after it became operational. The Finance Department in February 2022 opined that there were indeed irregularities in the award of the contract. A little more than a month later, the probe was handed to the CBI. The central agency’s FIR named RGIPL and TRBL as accused, and said that the J&K government’s allegations “prima facie disclose that unknown officials of Finance Department.with TRBL, RGIPL and other unknown public servants and private persons have committed the offences of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct to cause pecuniary advantage to themselves. thereby in this manner cheated the government of J&K”. The Enforcement Directorate is also investigating the matter. In January 2024, the ED provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 36.57 crore linked to the case. “The investigation revealed that the Finance Department deliberately awarded the tender for engagement of intermediary [TRBL] for designing and floating the tender. by dubious or questionable selection/ shortlisting process,” the ED has said. Kiru hydel corruption case The case pertains to the award of a contract for civil works to the tune of Rs 2,200 crore in the Kiru HEP in Jammu’s Kishtwar district by the Chenab Valley Power Projects Pvt Ltd (CVPPPL) in 2019 to Patel Engineering Ltd. The contract was for the construction of a diversion tunnel, concrete dam, pressure shafts, cofferdams, tailrace tunnels, and a powerhouse. The CBI FIR notes that the ACB and the J&K power department had investigated the matter. “Perusal of [their] reports reveals that in award of civil works package of Kiru HEP, guidelines regarding e-tendering were not followed, and [although] a decision was taken in the 47th Board Meeting of CVPPPL for re-tender through e-tendering with reverse auction, after cancellation of ongoing tendering process, [the] same was not implemented and the tender was finally awarded to M/s Patel Engineering,” the FIR states. The project, whose cost is estimated to be Rs 4,287 crore, has been marred by allegations of sub-standard work and failure to provide jobs to local youths, one of its main selling points. The ACB had observed that the tender for the project had been cancelled in 47th Board Meeting of CVPPPL, but was revived in the 48th Meeting and awarded to Patel Engineering. Apart from Malik, others named in the CBI’s chargesheet are: M S Babu, MD of CVPPPL; board directors M K Mittal and Arun Kumar Mishra; private secretaries Virendra Rana and Kanwar Singh Rana; Rupen Patel, MD of Patel Engineering; and a certain Kanwaljit Singh Duggal.
