On Tuesday, Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena asked the Chief Secretary to inquire into the alleged “irregularities and discrepancies” in the power subsidy given by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to the BSES discoms.

LG Saxena has sought the report for the aforesaid matter in seven days. Delhi LG has taken the step after receiving a complaint raising several issues of alleged impropriety and discrepancies in the power subsidy matter by the Spokesperson of AAP and Vice Chairperson of Dialog and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC) Jasmine Shah and AAP MP ND Gupta’s son Naveen Gupta.

The complainants– collective of eminent lawyers, jurists and law professionals– have alleged that earlier Senior Government officers of the Delhi Government were nominated as Directors on the Board of Directors of BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) to represent the Delhi Government (as it owns 49 per cent shares of BYPL and BRPL) so that interests of the Delhi Government are protected, an official notification read.

The complainants further alleged that the AAP appointed active political functionaries of its party, viz. Jasmine Shah, and Naveen ND Gupta, as nominee Directors on the Board of Directors of BRPL and BYPL, so that this exercise of swindling public money in collusion with these two Anil Ambani-owned companies (BRPL and BYPL) could be carried out without any intervention of Government Servants.

The complainants have also alleged the AAP in a “classic case of corruption” by mentioning in their complaint that the Delhi government has got into a “cozy deal” with BRPL and BYPL instead of recovering its outstanding dues of Rs 21,250 Crore for default in payment for power purchased by the defaulting vendor DISCOMS (BRPL and BYPL) from State-owned Power Generation Companies, and debarring it from further business in Delhi.

The complaint alleged that the government has agreed to settle the dues against future payments by future payments to be made to them by the government in the shape of subsidy reimbursements for supposedly free power that they provided to the consumers which amounted to a sum of Rs 11,550 Crores being settled as reimbursements.

They said that the Delhi government also “unduly” allowed DISCOMS to charge Late Payment Surcharge (LPSC) at a rate of 18 per cent from the people and paying the same at a rate of 12 per cent only to the Delhi Government owned Power Generation Companies, in the process providing a windfall gain of Rs 8,500 Crore at the cost of the state exchequer.

“Violated its own Cabinet decision of 2015-16, that entailed that Audit of BRPL and BYPL be conducted every year for electricity subsidy paid to them by the Delhi Government and allowed for no Audit to be done even as payments amounting to Rs 11,500 Crs. kept getting settled in favour of BRPL and BYPL; and blocked the implementation of DBT in the disbursal of power subsidy to the people in contravention of the DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission) order of 2018, with the sole aim of concealing the actual number of subsidy beneficiaries and thereby paying unverified amounts to these DISCOMS, paving the way for kick-backs and commissions,” the complainants added.