In a major development in the multi-crore Public Works Department (PWD) scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday initiated an inquiry against former Tripura PWD Minister and incumbent Deputy Leader of the Opposition Badal Chowdhury, former Tripura Chief Secretary Yashpal Singh, and former Chief Engineer of PWD department Sunil Bhowmik. The aforementioned case is registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The investigating agency also informed that a total of six people have been booked in the said case. As per ED sources, the probe is in its initial stage and none of the accused persons has been served any notice. The other three accused are- Namita Gope, Kalyani Bhowmik, and Archana Singh. The case was registered after a Vigilance Commission report that found misappropriation of funds in connection with development projects.
All you need to know about the PWD Scam In Tripura
The Tripura Police’s Crime Branch has been probing the case under Sections 409, 418, 420, 421 and 120(B) of the IPC. An FIR was lodged by the Crime Investigation Department with the West Agartala police station on October 13, 2019, in which the agency had accused Chowdhury, Bhowmik and Singh of being involved in a financial scam of over Rs 600 crore in PWD projects between 2008 and 2009. The three accused have been charged with fraud, corruption, criminal breach of trust and suppression of evidence.
In 2019, Tripura Minister Ratan Lal Nath had alleged that the scam took place after Chowdhury flouted a number of rules to create some packages by clubbing several of those projects and awarded them to some specific contractors
As per a letter undersigned by the assistant director of Agartala Sub-Zonal office of ED, Vikas Phogat, the directorate of land records and settlement, Sub Divisional Magistrates and sub-registrars of Jirania, Sadar and Belonia have been asked to furnish the copies of sale deeds, gift deeds, lease deed etc of any immovable property registered in the name of all the six accused. Police sources had said that a huge amount of public money was misappropriated in the construction of several development projects including the state’s fly over built-in Agartala city, but failed to file the charge sheet.
