Jaipur, May 8 -- The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) early Thursday arrested former Congress minister Mahesh Joshi in connection with the alleged Rs.900 crore irregularities in Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) scheme in Rajasthan, officials said. Director general (DG) of the ACB, Govind Gupta, said, "Joshi was the minister of Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) when the irregularities took place. After gathering some conclusive evidence regarding his involvement in the scam, a special team of the ACB arrested him from his residence in Jaipur at around 5.30 am on Thursday. He is now being brought to the ACB headquarter for further interrogation." The DG also said that the ACB produced the former minister before a court which remanded Joshi to police custody till May 11. According to the officials, Joshi allegedly deliberately failed to act despite being aware of the fact that some fake completion certificates impersonating a multinational engineering company were attached to bypass the tender process. "Had he taken any action timely, those tenders could have been issued to some better eligible firms. But he deliberately sat on the entire scam and provided undue benefits to some specific firms. These tenders cost around Rs.960 crores," said Gupta. He also added that Joshi in collusion with former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Subodh Agrawal had also allegedly attached an additional condition to a few more tenders to increase their prices. Agrawal, who served as the additional chief secretary (ACS) of the PHED department during Joshi's tenure, was arrested on April 9. "Those tenders cost around Rs 50 crores. Agrawal attached an additional term of a site inspection during the application for those tenders. It revealed the identity of the applicants and increased the price unfairly. This is how he provided many undue favours to some firms misusing his post," Gupta said, adding that three more people are also under the ACB's radar who would soon be arrested. While being taken to the courtroom, Joshi told reporters that the ACB did not serve him any notice and reached his residence early in the morning. Joshi said that he was innocent and termed the ACB's action against him "cruel". "Nothing can be more cruel than this. I am innocent. Today is my wedding anniversary, and this is how the government pays tribute to my (deceased) wife," Joshi said. Joshi, however, declined to comment on the case in detail, adding, "All I can say is that I am innocent." Earlier, Joshi was also arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on April 25 in connection with the alleged money laundering in the JJM scheme. However, ED released him on December 3, 2025 after the Supreme Court granted him bail citing lack of strong evidence and slow progress in the investigation. The arrest took place under section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on an FIR lodged by the Rajasthan Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on August 8, 2023. The FIR also named 22 other officials including the recently retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Agrawal and a private person Sanjay Badhaya who is an alleged close aide of Joshi and was also arrested by ED on July 16, 2024. Ahead of Agrawal's arrest on April 9, ACB also arrested at least 10 other people on February 17 while conducting a search operation in four states including Rajasthan, Delhi, Jharkhand, and Bihar....