Within days after the Jammu and Kashmir government approached the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the bribe allegation of former Governor Satya Pal Malik, India's premier investigative agency on Thursday conducted searches at 14 locations, across the country, in connection with the charges.
The CBI has registered two cases in the matter. The agency has booked Anil Ambani's Reliance General Insurance Company and officials of Chenab Valley Power Projects Pvt Ltd (CVPPPL), among others, in the two cases.
CBI conducted raids at the residences of senior IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir Navin Choudhary, former officers of Chenab Valley Projects Construction Limited and a construction company in Jammu, New Delhi, Bihar, and Mumbai.
Naveen Choudhary is presently serving as Principal Secretary Agriculture Department of Jammu and Kashmir.
Raids were conducted in Jammu, Srinagar, Delhi, Mumbai, Noida, Trivandrum (Kerala), and Darbhanga (Bihar) at the premises of the accused including private companies, then Chairman, then MD, then Directors of CVPPPL.
CBI had registered two separate cases on the request from the Jammu & Kashmir Government on the allegations of malpractices in the award of contract of J&K Employees Health Care Insurance Scheme to a private company & release of Rs. 60 crore in the year 2017-18.
The J&K government has also approached CBI to probe the award of the contract worth Rs. 2200 crore (approx.) of civil works of Kiru Hydro Electric Power Project (HEP) to a private firm in the year 2019.
Former J&K Governor's levels charges of corruption
On October 17, 2021, Satya Pal Malik, at present the governor of Meghalaya, levelled corruption charges against "Ambani" and "a senior RSS functionary". Malik, who served as Governor of J&K before the abrogation of article 370, alleged that when he was Jammu and Kashmir governor, he had received two files, one pertinent to "Ambani'' and the other to an "RSS functionary''.
"One of the secretaries told me that these are shady deals, but he can get Rs 150 crore each. I told him that I had come to Jammu and Kashmir with five kurta-pajamas and would leave with that only," the former governor had stated. "I alerted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who told me that there should be no compromise on corruption,'' Malik claimed.
In October 2018, when Malik was the governor of J&K, he had scrapped the Group Medical Insurance contract for government employees awarded to Reliance General Insurance Company. Malik had said the contract was "full of fraud".
J&K recommends CBI probe into Malik's bribery allegations
Within months after Satya Pal Malik made a startling revelation of corruption, the Jammu and Kashmir government on March 23, 2022, recommended a CBI probe into the allegations.
"We (the administration) thought over the bribery allegations levelled by former J&K governor Satya Pal Malik. If people of high rank have levelled such allegations, then it needs to be probed," J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha told reporters in Jammu.
He said the administration has recommended a CBI probe into the allegations levelled by the former governor. "The CBI inquiry would make everything crystal clear," he said.
