In a major crackdown in two high-profile cases of Jammu and Kashmir, the CBI on Thursday raided the residence of a senior IAS officer Navin Choudhary here and at least thirteen other locations across the country.
The raids were also conducted in Srinagar, Delhi, Mumbai, NOIDA, Trivandrum, Darbhanga and private companies in connection with two FIRs that the CBI had recently registered on the recommendation of the Jammu and Kashmir government on allegations of malpractices in the J&K Government Employees Health Care Insurance Scheme that was awarded to Reliance General Insurance Corporation Limited (RGICL), an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company.
The other case relates to the award of civil works for the Kiru Hydroelectric power project.
Choudhary was finance secretary and also chairman of the Chenab Valley Power Projects Ltd and is now principal secretary, agriculture.
Meghalaya governor Satyapal Malik had recently claimed that during his stint as the last Governor of J&K before the state became a union territory, he was offered Rs 300 crore as a bribe in the two cases. Malik said that he not only cancelled the contracts but also flagged the issue to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who supported his decision saying there cannot be any compromise on corruption.
In October 2018, when Malik was the governor of J&K, he ordered the scrapping of the Group Medical Insurance contract for government employees awarded to Reliance General Insurance Company. The contract was “full of fraud,” Malik had alleged. Malik had challenged the three farm laws and openly declared his support for the agitating farmers.
The allegations regarding the group health insurance scheme for J&K government employees relate primarily to the process and rates.
The last policy expired in 2017 and another scheme for Rs 6 lakh per annum for all employees and pensioners was proposed. The process for selecting an insurer was started in February 2017.
Reliance General Insurance Company Limited was selected through competitive bidding. The first instalment – 20% of the premium — was paid on October 16, 2018, amounting to Rs 60.43 crore. Also, Rs 1 crore was paid to the insurer on the signing of the contract.
In the FIR, the CBI is learnt to have said that the e-tender process wasn’t followed while awarding civil works of the Kiru hydroelectric project worth Rs 2,240 crore to Patel Engineering Ltd. The CVPPL board decided to re-tender all major works through the e-tendering process in June 2019, but it was reversed in another board meeting in August the same year, after which the major work was awarded to Patel Engineering Ltd.
Opposition parties and employee unions had questioned the top brass of the state’s finance department for paying an amount of Rs.60 crores to Ambani’s company even before the scheme became operational. Malik while being Governor of J&K had ordered foreclosure of the insurance scheme and also ordered the Anti-Corruption Bureau to probe the entire issue of certain bureaucrats favouring the particular Mediclaim company.