Gomti Riverfront scam: CBI raids 40 locations in 3 states

LUCKNOW: The Central Bureau of Investigation conducted searches at 38 locations in UP and one each in Rajasthan and West Bengal in connection with the Rs 1,513-crore Gomti Riverfront Park scam – a flagship project of the previous SP government.
The searches started on Sunday night and were underway at some locations till late on Monday. The crackdown came after the CBI filed a fresh FIR in the case on July 2 naming 16 government officials and 173 firms and private entities as accused.
Sources in the CBI said the FIR was lodged following revelations that surfaced while probing the original FIR in the scam lodged in 2017 in which only eight engineers were named as accused.
The searches were carried out in Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Gorakhpur, Agra, Etah and Moradabad. The CBI teams also searched a property each in Alwar district of Rajasthan and Kolkata.
The premises searched included properties of two chief engineers, four superintending engineers, an executive engineer, assistant engineers who were posted with the irrigation department between 2015 and 2017 and had been associated with execution of the project. Premises of private entities associated with the scam were also searched.The July 2 FIR, on the basis of which searches were conducted, relates to the work related to the Gomti Riverfront Park that was executed between 2015 to March 2017 amounting to Rs 407 crore. It included repairing and painting of bridge, removal of sludge, construction of amphitheatre, installation of swings for children, landscaping and horticulture work from Nishatganj Bridge to Baikunth Dham, audio system, food plaza on Gomti Setu, Rubber Track and Jogging Track.
“Probe revealed that Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT) for these jobs were not published in national newspapers as required and fake letters were allegedly sent to the information department instead,” the CBI stated in the FIR.
The FIR cited investigations to state that tenders were awarded to the firms only on papers while the proprietors of these firms have denied signing or submitting any document related to the project. It has also been revealed that committees constituted to allocate work related to the project floated fake tenders and awarded contracts to shell firms registered in the names of their relatives or family members.
The FIR also mentions a French firm, Aquatic Show, which was given a contract fraudulently. “Without due permission of the government, the accused engineers misused their official position and gave contract to the French firm on quotation basis. Though the accused engineers, in the official records, had shown that tenders were floated which could not be corroborated,” the FIR stated.
The engineers named in the FIR are: Shiv Mangal Yadav, Jeevan Ram Yadav, Akhil Raman, Surendra Kumar Pal, Kamleshwar Singh, Roop Singh Yadav, then superintending engineer Shriprakash, then assistant engineers Jagpal Singh, Sunderlal, then principal assistants Om Verma, Kazim Ali, Siddh Narayan Sharma, then chief engineers Rajkumar Yadav and Manoj Yadav, then junior assistants, Sushil Kumar Yadav then Assistant Engineer and Arvind Singh Yadav then Executive Engineer. All have been booked under the charges of dishonesty, prevention of corruption act, Forgery for purpose of cheating, forgery of valuable security, fraudulently or dishonestly using a genuine document and criminal conspiracy.
Sources said the first FIR was registered against eight engineers on November 30, 2017, in which works of beautification of Gomti river project to the tune of Rs 1,031 crore were only taken up by the CBI and in which a chargesheet has also been filed against former executive engineer Roop Singh Yadav, senior assistant Raj Kumar Yadav, two directors of a private firm associated with the Gomti Riverfront Development Project scam. The named accused awarded the work for intercepting trunk drain to an ineligible private firm and the date of tender was twice extended to accommodate the said firm, while probe is still pending in the case.