Srinagar: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Wednesday registered a case against the officers and officials of J&K Housing Board Srinagar into the corruption allegations pertaining to projects of construction of the buildings and searches were conducted at several places.
In a statement issued on Wednesday the Anti Corruption Bureau said that it has registered case FIR 27/2020 against the officers/ officials of J&K Housing Board Srinagar on the outcome of a JSC conducted by this Bureau into the allegations of procurement of material on exorbitant rates and use of substandard material in projects of construction of the buildings undertaken and progressed ahead by J&K Housing Board Unit 2nd, Srinagar without tendering process during the period 2015- 2017.
In it’s statement the ACB further said “ during the probe it was found that these works were to be executed in two fold mechanism; labour component and material component wherein the labour component was to be executed through piece meal workers and the material was to be produced through tendering from original manufactures”, adding that “apart from lot of procurements done without tendering in conspiracy with portrayed piece meal workers, made procurement of many items on exorbitant rates”.
The statement also said “at one project in Srinagar, the excavated earth to the tune of 11756 cubic metres has been shown transported to a dumping site but the dumping site has not been identified by providing any site plan etc” adding that “ the dumping site is located at a far distance from the project site but same has been shown located at minimum distance”. The statement further said that the auction or sale of excavated material could have generated revenue for government as such wrongful loss has been caused to the State Exchequer.
Stating that the purported carriage charges of the material from excavated site to dumping site have been billed to the tune huge amounts, the ACB in it’s statement said “the billed cost amounting on account of non-existent levelling of unknown dumping site has been done which has resulted in loss to State exchequer with consequent undue benefit to the public servants”.
The ACB in it’s statement further said that the executing agency has failed to provide any contour map or cross section depicting natural surface prior to excavation to support their claim of excavating a quantity of 11756 cubic meters of earth and disclosed that the approximate loss worked out at one of the sites on account of excavation of earth work is about Rs. 15 Lakh. “The loss is likely to go up when the investigation of the case will move further”, the ACB statement reads.
Stating that the allegations of nepotism in allotting works etc have also been levelled with respect to the other projects at different places which will be probed during investigation, the ACB in it’ statement said “ the above mentioned commissions and omissions on part of officers/officials of J&K Housing Board, namely Aftab Rashid Pandit, the then Deputy General Manger J&K Housing Board Unit 2nd, Srinagar, Shiekh Sajjad Bashir, the then Assistant Manager J&K Housing Board Unit 2nd, Srinagar and others constitute offences under section 5(1) (C), 5(1) (d) r/w section 5(2) J&K PC Act Samvat 2006 and section 120-B RPC”. Disclosing that a case FIR No. 27/2020 was registered in Police Station ACB Srinagar on 15.12.2020, the ACB in it’s statement said “subsequently search warrants were obtained from the competent court and searches were conducted at various places. During the searches, some incriminating materials/documents were seized on spot”, adding that “further investigation in to the case is going on”.
