The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Wednesday claimed that during the searches it conducted on Tuesday across Delhi, Varanasi and Chandigarh in connection with the Delhi Jal Board alleged corruption case, the federal agency found incriminating documents and digital evidence.

According to the agency’ statement on Wednesday, valuables amounting to Rs. 1.97 Crore and foreign currency equivalent to Rs. 4 lakh have been seized during the searches.

The probe agency had initiated a probe based on an FIR registered by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for offences related alleged corruption, bribery related to the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

The FIR alleged that Jagdish Kumar Arora, who was the then Chief Engineer of the DJB, had  awarded a certain contract to  NKG Infrastructure Ltd. for a total cost of about Rs. 38 crore, despite the fact that the company did not meet the technical eligibility criteria.

As per the ED, during the investigation it was revealed that the said private company allegedly obtained the bid by submitting fake  documents, and the then Chief Engineer allegedly received a bribe amount both in cash and bank accounts in this regard.

The ED further said that digital evidence show that Arora passed on the bribe funds to various persons connected with managing the affairs of the DJB, including persons connected with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Bribe amounts were also passed on as Election Funds to AAP, the ED said.

The ED investigation further revealed that the contract of DJB was awarded at highly inflated rates so that the bribes could be collected from the contractors from the inflated cost of the contract.

As against the contract value of Rs. 38 crore, only about Rs. 17 crore was spent on the contract and the remaining amounts were siphoned off in guise of various fake expenses. Such fake expenses were booked for bribes and election funds.

The ED had earlier conducted searches on July 24 and November 17 last year and had seized various digital evidences.

Jagdish Kumar Arora and Anil Kumar Aggarwal were arrested by the federal probe agency on January 31, and the court had granted ED custody of the two till February 10.