The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Thursday, arrested former Rajasthan minister for PHED Mahesh Joshi in the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) scam.
Earlier in the day, Joshi was interrogated in the case lodged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 for more than 5 hours.
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Responding to the fourth summons from the ED in the case lodged under the PML Act 2002, the former minister reached the state headquarters of the directorate at around 11:30 am on Thursday for interrogation. The grilling session culminated in Joshi’s arrest.
The ED’s state office had earlier served the ex-Congress MLA with summons thrice last year. However, he evaded his appearance seeking extension (in time) on various grounds.
As per the available details, the process of inviting and approving the tenders (granting contracts) for various water supply schemes related works under JJM on the basis of forged certificates led to scam or irregularities of over Rs 2000 crore during the previous Congress regime (2018 -2023).
Senior BJP leader and Agriculture Minister Dr Kirodi Lal Meena had raised voice against this “scam” that according to Meena involved the irregularities of more than Rs 20,000 crore.
Prior to the interrogation of Joshi, several high officials of PHED, contractors, and representatives of some (supplier) companies have also been questioned by ED. Of them four – Mahesh Mittal, Padam Chand Jain, Piyush Jain and Sanjay Badaya were arrested in the case.
They were later released on bail by the Supreme Court.
Some more arrests are also likely to take place.
