The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Rajasthan Police has registered a case against Congress leader and former minister of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) Mahesh Joshi and others in alleged scam in the Jal Jeevan Mission.
According to ACB officials, as many as 22 people, including some employees and functionaries of contractor firms are named as accused in the FIR lodged in this connection.
The former minister is likely to be summoned soon by the ACB for interrogation in the case, officials said, adding contractors and government officials concerned would also be cross-examined.
The alleged scam was raked up during the previous Congress regime by Agriculture Minister and the then BJP Member of Rajya Sabha Dr Kirodi Lal Meena in June last year.
Meena had tried to lodge an FIR at the Ashok Nagar police station in the State Secretariat area here. He had sat on dharna outside the police station following refusal by the police for registering the case. After a two-day long sit-in, Meena was shifted from the dharna site by the police.
Later the case was registered by the ACB accusing– two proprietors of the tubewell companies and some others — of bribing public servants to get bills sanctioned and cover up irregularities in works executed by them.
Subsequently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken up the matter earlier this year to examine the possibility of money laundering in the alleged transactions in the case.
The ED had also arrested four people — the representatives of contractor firms a few months back in this connection.