Maharashtra irrigation scam: ACB's Director General files second affidavit

Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General (DG) Parambir Singh has filed an additional affidavit in the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court tendering an apology for an error in his previous affidavit filed last week.

The affidavit was regarding the irrigation scam in which the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Ajit Pawar was given a clean chit.

In the last affidavit filed by him on December 19, Parambir Singh stated that the earlier Director General Sanjay Bare "did not notice a specific report regarding the role of Ajit Pawar" when he filed an affidavit about the same issue last year.

Tendering apology, Singh said that the earlier DG "did notice that report and mentioned it in his last year's affidavit".

On December 19, the ACB in the affidavit gave a clean chit to Ajit Pawar in the alleged Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC) scam.

"As regards the role of respondent number 7 (Ajit Pawar), no criminal liability is disclosed during the course of enquiry/investigation by the special investigation teams," the affidavit filed by the Parambir Singh stated.

It said that the open enquiry into 45 tenders has been closed as no criminal offences were disclosed in the matter. The agency also cleared Pawar's name in the irrigation scam in an affidavit dated November 27 submitted to the court.

Pawar, along with others, was in-charge of Maharashtra's irrigation department when the Congress-NCP coalition government was in power in the state from 1999 to 2014.

That was the period during which the alleged scam, relating to irregularities in various irrigation projects, took place.