Charge sheet filed against 14 persons in Guwahati Municipal Corporation scam case

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell has filed a charge sheet against 14 persons in the court of the Special Judge, Assam in connection with the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) de-siltation scam.

The 851-page charge sheet has been filed under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

Those indicted in the charge sheet include Babulal Sarma, OSD (officer on Special Duty) of the GMC; Tasdiqur Rahman, Chief Engineer of the GMC; Ashif Ahmed, Executive Engineer and Swacchata Officer of the GMC (on deputation); Shankar Medhi, Executive Engineer, Division-I of the GMC; Ramakanta Saikia, Executive Engineer, Division-II of the GMC; Alin Begum, Executive Engineer, Division-III of the GMC; Chittaranjan Dutta, Executive Engineer, Division-IV of the GMC; Hiranya Barman, Executive Engineer, Division-V of the GMC; Simanta Jyoti Baruah, Executive Engineer, Division-VI of the GMC; Dibakar Mali, Assistant Engineer of the GMC; Pradip Sarma, Assistant Engineer of the GMC; Dinesh Jaiswal, proprietor of M/s Dinsan Global Ventures Pvt Ltd; Mithu Agarwal, partner of M/s Dinsan Global Ventures Pvt Ltd; and Abhimanyu Medhi, chartered accountant & audit officer of the GMC.

Sources in the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell said that sufficient documentary, material and circumstantial evidence has been found by the investigators to establish criminal conspiracy and misconduct by the accused persons with a view to misappropriating government funds. Even though the charge sheet has been filed, the investigation is being kept open under Section 173(8) of the CrPC for subsequent submission of supplementary charge sheet, the sources added.

It may be recalled that the case pertains to works for de-siltation of drains/channels in Guwahati city that were awarded by the GMC to M/s Dinsan Global Ventures Pvt Ltd during the period from April 2, 2022 to May 26, 2022. It is alleged that M/s Dinsan Global Venture Pvt Ltd was engaged for hiring of vehicles/machineries for carrying out the de-siltation works, but the firm subsequently submitted bills with forged weighbridge slips for several crores of rupees and withdrew the allotted government funds. The firm also submitted bills to the GMC showing supply of vehicles/machineries at inflated rates. It is further alleged that that the accused officials of the GMC conspired with the contractor and did not implement de-siltation works as per terms and conditions laid down in the tender documents. Further, payments were released to the contractors without proper execution of works based on forged and fake weighbridge slips solely for the pecuniary benefit of the accused persons.

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