New Delhi: The CBI Tuesday filed a case against former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and other senior officers of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led administration, alleging they created a ‘Feedback Unit’ to check corruption but used it to collect “political intelligence”.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in February gave sanction to prosecute Sisodia under the Prevention of Corruption Act after Delhi Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) Vinai Kumar Saxena approved the CBI’s request for prosecution sanction against the AAP leader, who was in charge of the Delhi vigilance department.
According to CBI sources, the appointments to the said unit were made “without required approvals”, there were no recruitment rules set, money was released to bogus entities in the name of a “secret service fund”, and the teams carried out snooping in the name of checking corruption.
The CBI in its FIR, accessed by ThePrint, also said that “the unlawful manner of creation and working of the Feedback Unit has caused wrongful loss to the government exchequer to the tune of approximate Rs 36 lakhs”.
The FBU was willfully created, staffed, funded and incentivised out of public exchequer in an irregular manner by Sisodia and Sukesh Jain, the then secretary vigilance, along with R.K. Sinha (retired DIG, CISF), working as special adviser to the CM and joint director of the FBU, and P.K. Punj (retired joint deputy director, Intelligence Bureau), working as deputy director in the FBU, the FIR said.
They did so in violation of rules and regulations, and without mandatory approvals, by abuse of their official position and with a dishonest intention to utilise the FBU for purposes other than those for which it was created, it added.
The former deputy CM is already facing another CBI investigation in a case related to alleged favours extended to liquor traders under the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22.
The Delhi government as well as the AAP have called the allegations against Sisodia “completely bogus”.
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The case
It was on 4 November 2016 that the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Branch received a complaint from S.K. Meena, deputy secretary in the vigilance department, about the matter.
According to the FIR, he alleged that the Delhi cabinet had in September 2015 cleared the proposal for the creation of an FBU without the required approvals.
The FBU was tasked to gather “relevant information and actionable feedback regarding the working of various departments and autonomous bodies, institutions and entities falling under the jurisdiction of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and to do trap cases (cases where someone accused of corruption is caught in the act)”, the CBI said.
CBI sources told ThePrint that no approval was sought for the creation of the unit — or for the appointments made to it — from the Delhi L-G, who is the competent authority for appointments in the GNCTD.
Besides, no “recruitment rules” were framed for the posts created, a source in the agency said.
“The proposal did not have the approval of the L-G. The proposal was initiated in haste without any actual urgency in the matter. The power to create posts under GNCTD has been detailed in the communications of the home ministry, which delegates powers for creation of all types of post under the GNCTD, but it was overlooked,” the source said.
Moreover, the manner in which the advertisement, selection and appointments for the FBU posts were done — without any notification by the GNCTD — shows there was a criminal conspiracy, the source added.
According to the CBI sources, the FBU started functioning from February 2016 and Rs 1 crore was kept aside for “secret service expenditure”. This money, the sources said, was written off to bogus identities, and fake invoices were generated.
A second source told ThePrint that two instances of payments were shown to have been made from the secret service fund to certain companies, and, during investigation, it was found that they were never given that money.
“The invoices showed that money from the secret service fund was given to one M/s Silver Shield Detectives and M/s WW Security. However, during inquiry it was revealed that the vouchers in lieu of disbursing the payments were fake,” the source said.
“The owners of both firms denied doing any work for GNCTD or the FBU and denied receiving any payment. They stated that the vouchers made in their firm’s name were fabricated.”
The source said “there is prima facie deliberate violation of rules and guidelines by delinquent public servants”.
“The nature of violations committed is inherently dishonest and as such materials disclose abuse of official position with dishonest intention by public servants concerned, including Manish Sisodia, and others,” the source added.
‘Snooping’
CBI sources said that a rough analysis of the nature of the reports generated by the FBU revealed that 60 per cent were related to vigilance matters, whereas political intelligence and other issues accounted for the rest.
It was also observed that no formal action was taken against any public servant or department, the sources added.
“The FBU in addition to collecting the mandated information, also collected political intelligence, which accounted for about 40 per cent of the total reports generated by FBU, which was beyond the scope and ambit of functions of FBU for which it was manifestly created,” the FIR said.
A third source told ThePrint that “a substantial number of reports were related not to actionable feedback or information on corruption in any department, institute, entity etc… but were related to political activities”.
“A scrutiny of reports submitted by FBU officials between February 2016 and early September 2016 shows that a substantial number of reports were related not to actionable feedback or information on corruption in any department, institute, entity etc., under the GNCTD, but were related to political activities of persons, political entities and issues pertaining to the political interest of the AAP, BJP or (other parties) — which was beyond the scope and ambit of the FBU,” the source said.
This, the source added, shows the FBU was misused by public servants for purposes other than the one for which it was created.
“The FBU was not functioning in the manner and for the purpose approved by the Delhi cabinet but was working for other hidden purposes which were not in the interest of the GNCTD, but were in the private interest of AAP and Manish Sisodia,” the source said.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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