Jaipur, Oct. 28 -- The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) has found the joint director (JD) of RajComp Info Services Limited (RISL) issuing 66 tenders to three private companies from 2017 to 2022 in exchange of over Rs.37 lakh which was paid to his wife by two of them as "salary" without delivering any work, officials aware of the matter said. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the ACB, Anand Sharma, who was leading the SIT of this case said, "As per the Rajasthan High Court's order on September 6, 2024 based on a complaint by an individual, a probe was launched by the SIT against the JD Pradyuman Dixit (41), his wife Poonam Dixit, and the deputy director of RISL Rakesh Kumar Kamalesh (37) on July 3 this year." "These monthly payments disguised as salaries are the bribes paid to Pradyuman by those companies for official favour to get hold of government work tenders," he said. "After this major irregularity was recently found, we lodged an FIR against them last week. We will also seek an approval from the state government to take action against them following a further detailed investigation," the officer added. According to officials, 24 of the total 66 tenders were issued to the specific two companies by Pradyuman where his wife was posed as an employee and drew 'salary' despite never having gone to the offices or doing any kind of work. Meanwhile, the remaining 42 tenders were issued to the third company to outsource the work projects to one of the aforementioned two companies, according to the FIR copy accessed by HT. Dixit joined the the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) as a deputy director in 2014 and was promoted as the JD of RISL in 2015 when he also got married to his wife Poonam Dixit, a native of Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur. Another accused, Kamalesh joined DIPR's Rajsamand unit as a programmer in 2013 and was elevated in RISL in 2021. "All the three private companies also source manpower to RISL from their organisation depending on various projects which are chosen by the RISL JD. Misusing this power of his post, Pradyuman, got Poonam hired by the first company in October 1, 2017 as a software engineer till December 31, 2018," read the FIR. Later, she joined the second company on January 16, 2019 as a senior developer and worked till September 30, 2020. On March 1, 2021, she rejoined the previous company as a quality analyst and worked till May 31, 2022. Meanwhile, she was also found getting payment from the first company for working as a freelancer while she was a permanent employee of the second company. "Her biodata and other documents were forwarded to the HR departments of those companies. They also produced the details of the work which were assigned to her," the complaint read. "But these companies failed to give us the final outcome delivered by her. It seems that she never worked for any of them. Prima facie, Pradyuman and Kamalesh, themselves, prepared Poonam's monthly performance records and attendance sheets- based on which her salaries was paid to 9 bank accounts over the years," the FIR mentioned in detail. The ACB also calculated that a total Rs.3,754,405 was paid to Poonam's accounts by those two companies as 'salary' in those three years, as per the FIR details. The FIR lodged against the three was registered under sections 409, 193, and 120-B of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and also sections 13(1)(c), 13(1)(d), 13(2), 7(c), 9, 10, 12, 13(1)(a), and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. After lodging the FIR, the SIT team had transferred the case to the DSP Neeraj Gurnani for further investigation. Gurnani said, "We are probing the irregularities in the tenders issued to those 3 companies. We are also probing their bank accounts and other documents in detail."...