New Delhi: Nearly a decade after the Delhi Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) registered three FIRs against Arvind Kejriwal’s late brother-in-law, Surender Kumar Bansal, on corruption and forgery charges, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the probe in two of the cases. So far, the ACB had not filed a chargesheet in any of the cases.
Bansal had been booked in three cases by the ACB for alleged forgery as well as using the influence of then-CM Kejriwal to secure Delhi Public Works Department (PWD) contracts for his company between 2015 and 2016. The contracts involved the construction of an RCC (reinforced cement concrete) drain and the revamp of drains along National Highway 44. Bansal died of a brain stroke days before the FIRs had been filed against him.
Just months before the Ministry of Home Affairs’ nod to the CBI to take over the investigation, the ACB had filed a closure report in one of the three cases in April 2025. The ACB had concluded its probe in two cases, but had not filed chargesheets due to the lack of a prosecution sanction from the competent authority, according to an ACB status report, placed before a Delhi court. All three cases remained in cold storage for nearly a year before the CBI registered two of the cases on 17 April this year.
The Delhi ACB had registered the cases after preliminary enquiries into a complaint by a Noida-based anti-corruption NGO, which claimed that Kejriwal had used his influence to help his brother-in-law’s firm—Renu Construction—secure contracts from the PWD and that the PWD had then cleared related bills without any work being done.
As part of its probe, the ACB had arrested Bansal’s son Vinay Bansal, a 50 percent stakeholder in Renu Construction, in May 2018. A Delhi court had granted Vinay bail in June that year.
Bansal had been awarded the PWD work contract at 46 percent below the estimated Rs 4.9 crore cost, though the work could not have been done at such a price, even with “rocket-science”, Rahul Sharma, founder of Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO), had claimed.
Sharma had added that Right to Information (RTI) replies had revealed Renu Construction’s claims of materials procurement from a PWD store run by a Sonepat-based firm, Mahadev Impex, had been false. Mahadev Impex had not made any such business transactions during the time period, tax department records had allegedly revealed.
“That, after retrieving all the information under RTI, the complainant requested for site verification, which was willfully denied by the department. However, upon a personal inspection, the complainant found that no such work had ever been conducted. Rather, it had just been a paper exercise to cause substantive gains to the brother-in-law of Sh. Arvind Kejriwal, under his (Kejriwal’s) influence,” the ACB FIR, re-registered by the CBI stated.
“That now at this stage it is established beyond all reasonable doubt as to how Mr Bansal could manage to take the public contract on 46 PERCENT lower rate quotes, as in his heinous mens rea, he had to work on papers only. 8. That, as above-mentioned style, Mr Bansal has further cheated in cooperation with other officials of PWD NCT Delhi by taking contracts in the name of various companies and taken the huge some of payment on the basis of forged and fake invoices,” it further stated.
In its preliminary Inquiry, the ACB had allegedly found that one P.K. Kathuria, the then executive engineer with the PWD, had cleared the bills of Renu Construction amounting to Rs 2.64 crore. Additionally, in its probe, the ACB had allegedly found that Bansal had forged bills in the names of several firms to have payments credited by the PWD.
“That it is prayed that the role of Hon’ble Chief Minister of NCT-Delhi must also be investigated, as he has caused the substantive gains to Mr Bansal and his other relatives by using his chief ministerial influence,” Sharma had further said in his complaint to the ACB.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)