ED makes fresh arrest in Rajasthan's Jal Jeevan Mission case, say officials

The Enforcement Directorate has made a fresh arrest in connection with its money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme being implemented in Rajasthan, official sources said Friday.

Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, has been taken into custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said.

The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) launched by the Union government aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through household tap connections and it is being implemented in Rajasthan by the state's Public Health Engineering (PHE) department.

A man named Piyush Jain was the first to be arrested in this case by the federal agency early this year.

The money laundering case of the ED stems from an FIR registered by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) where it was charged that Padamchand Jain, Mahesh Mittal (proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company), Piyush Jain and others were "involved in giving bribes to public servants in order to obtain illegal protection, tenders, getting bills sanctioned and covering up irregularities for work executed by them in respect of various tenders received by them from the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED)."

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 to get PHED contracts, the agency alleged in a statement issued earlier.

The ED had claimed several middlemen and property dealers "aided" Rajasthan government's PHE department officials to siphon off "illegally earned" money from the Jal Jeevan Mission.

Probe found that Padamchand Jain and Mahesh Mittal were involved in securing tenders pertaining to JJM works based on "purported fake work completion certificates issued by IRCON and by bribing senior PHED officials."

Piyush Jain, the ED had said, was "managing" the affairs of these accused firms and was also in receipt of about Rs 3.5 crore which were nothing but the proceeds of crime in this case.

Premises in Jaipur and Dausa, including the residential and official premises of senior PHE department officials, former Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi and IAS officer and the then additional chief secretary Subodh Agarwal, have been searched by the ED in connection with the probe.