Two days after conducting searches in the Rs 2,000-crore classroom corruption case in Delhi, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it has recovered 322 bank passbooks allegedly linked to mule accounts opened in the names of labourers used to divert government funds under the guise of legitimate transactions. Officials said that original departmental files belonging to the Delhi government, along with rubber stamps bearing the names and designations of officials from the PWD, were also found during the probe. The searches were conducted on Wednesday at 37 places as part of the ED’s money laundering probe into the alleged corruption to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of classrooms in government schools in Delhi. On April 30, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Delhi government registered a first information report (FIR) against former Delhi ministers and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain in the graft case. “The ED initiated the investigation based on an FIR registered by the ACB against Manish Sisodia (the then Education Minister), Satyendar Jain (the then PWD Minister) and others pertaining to financial misappropriation exceeding Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of approximately 12,748 additional classrooms by the Public Works Department (PWD), between 2015 and 2023,” an ED spokesperson said. According to the probe agency, despite an initial requirement for 2,405 classrooms, the project scope was arbitrarily increased to 7,180 equivalent classrooms, and subsequently to 12,748 without proper sanction or approvals, resulting in massive cost escalations. “Also, there was an unjustified adoption of richer specifications proposed by M Babbar & Babbar Associates, and the execution of duplicate and inflated works. Cost escalations of up to 49.03% were observed across Priority-I and Priority-II phases,” the ED spokesperson alleged. “During searches, the ED unearthed substantial incriminating evidence from the premises of a private contractor. Among the materials seized were original departmental files belonging to the Delhi government, as well as rubber stamps bearing the names and designations of officials from the PWD,” the ED spokesperson said. “The ED has found forged letterheads of various private contractors and shell entities, which were used to generate fake procurement records and fictitious purchase bills, and were seized,” the ED spokesperson said. “Evidence relating to fake invoices submitted to Delhi government departments, showing inflated or entirely bogus claims, was found and seized. Several dummy firms have been found during the search which were having no real infrastructure, documentation, or operational legitimacy, but were shown to have received substantial payments for construction activities relating to the additional classrooms. Additionally, substantial incriminating documents and digital evidence have been recovered and seized during the search,” the ED spokesperson added. Earlier, in response to the ED action, the AAP had said: “The BJP is relentlessly bulldozing jhuggis and demolishing livelihoods of the poor and marginalised across Delhi. These so-called raids are nothing but a desperate attempt to divert public attention from that reality. The allegations are baseless, politically motivated, and timed only to distract from the BJP’s anti-people actions.”
