Balganga dam scam: 30,000-page chargesheet lacks Ajit Pawar’s name

The Thane Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday filed a 30,000-page chargesheet in multi-crore Balganga irrigation project scam in Raigad. However, the chargesheet mentions no charges against the Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar.

According to ACB officials, they have filed a chargsheet against 10 persons allegedly involved in the irregularities during the proposed construction of Balganga dam. The project was one of the 13 that the Maharashtra government had asked the ACB to probe in January 2015 following a public interest litigation filed in the Bombay high court alleging of corruption in several irrigation projects.

An ACB official said, “On Monday, we filed our first chargsheet in the case against 10 accused after accumulating evidence against them. However, we will continue our investigation. Our teams are working on it and as and when we find any evidence against any of the accused, we will inform the court of the same.”

On why the then state water resources minister Ajit Pawar, who had been questioned by the ACB in connection with the case, was not named in their chargesheet, the ACB official said, “The investigation is yet to get over as our officers are still probing the issue.”

On August 25, 2015, the ACB had registered an FIR against 10 accused under the Prevention of Corruption Act in the Balganga project for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 92 crore to the state exchequer. Six high-ranking officials, led by the Konkan Irrigation Development Corporation executive director, Girish Gopal Babar, and four partners of the FA Constructions, who got the dam contract in 2009, have been booked in the case.