MHA approves investigation against former Delhi health ministers Bharadwaj, Jain; AAP denies charges

New Delhi: The Union home ministry has granted approval for conducting an investigation by ACB under the Prevention of Corruption Act against former Delhi health ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Satyendar Jain in alleged scam related to delays in hospital projects, Raj Niwas officials said on Tuesday.

AAP denied the charges and alleged "weaponisation" of routine project delays.

"The competent authority has approved the conduct of an inquiry / investigation by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against former Delhi health ministers, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Satyendar Jain in the more than thousands crore hospitals scam. The approval of the competent authority comes after, recommendation for the same, by Delhi LG, VK Saxena on May 6," the official said.

The inquiry follows a complaint made by BJP's Vijender Gupta last year in August. Gupta had alleged corruption in the Delhi government's health department with the connivance of then ministers Bharadwaj and Jain, the official said.

"Upon prima facie perusal of the complaint, the ACB revealed consistent inflating of project costs, deliberate delays by the department, rejection of cost-effective solutions, mis-allocation of funds and creation of idle assets and termed the same as tactics and patterns of misconduct and corrupt activities, which resulted in huge loss to the government exchequer," said the official.

The ACB moved the Vigilance Department (DoV) for prior approval under Section 17A of PoC Act to probe against Bharadwaj and Jain. The department forwarded the ACB's findings to the Health and Family Welfare Department and the Public Works Department (PWD) for their comments.

The health department opined that these issues could be looked into by the ACB and they have no objection for conducting the inquiry.

The PWD recommended investigation into the entire gamut of issues pertaining to construction of ICU Hospitals, polyclinics and 24 other hospitals, identify instances of corruption, irregularities and violation of laws and rules.

"Examining the proposal submitted by ACB and comments furnished by the two departments, the DoV, in a file noting said due to upgradation in specifications and facilities beyond original provision after award of work, the construction of hospitals was not completed in prescribed and stipulated time," the official said.

The vigilance department said due diligence in estimate preparation and planning was allegedly not done accurately, which resulted in an abnormal increase in cost beyond the original sanctioned amount.

Rubbishing the charges, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the BJP and the LG have turned governance into a “laughing stock” by "weaponising" routine project delays as alleged corruption.

Drawing a stark contrast with the Centre’s own record, AAP questioned why no CBI inquiries were launched into the 10-year delay of the bullet train project or the "fact that 53 per cent of the central government infrastructure projects face delays exceeding three years and massive cost overruns".

Underscoring the "absurdity" of sanctioning a probe against Jain, who the party claimed had no involvement with the projects in question, AAP alleged logical fallacy of blaming ministers when every officer involved in such works reports directly to the LG.

“If this is the new definition of corruption, then dozens of Union ministers should face CBI action every week,” AAP said, calling the entire exercise a "politically motivated farce".

“As per Central Government data, common causes for delays in projects include delayed regulatory approvals, land acquisition issues, financial constraints, contractor non-performance, environmental clearances, and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Can corruption cases be registered against ministers for these reasons?” the party said in a statement.