New Delhi, June 24 -- The Union home ministry has granted approval for conducting an investigation by ACB under the Prevention of Corruption Act against former Delhi health ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Satyendar Jain in alleged scam related to delays in hospital projects, Raj Niwas officials said on Tuesday.

AAP denied the charges and alleged "weaponisation" of routine project delays.

"The competent authority has approved the conduct of an inquiry / investigation by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against former Delhi health ministers, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Satyendar Jain in the more than

thousands crore hospitals scam. The approval of the competent authority comes after, recommendation for the same, by Delhi L-G, VK Saxena on May 6," the official said.

The inquiry follows a complaint made by BJP's Vijender Gupta last year in August. Gupta had alleged corruption in the Delhi government's health department with the connivance of then ministers Bharadwaj and Jain, the official said.

"Upon prima facie perusal of the complaint, the ACB revealed consistent inflating of project costs, deliberate delays by the department, rejection of cost-effective solutions, mis-allocation of funds and creation of idle assets and termed the same as tactics and patterns of misconduct and corrupt activities, which resulted in huge loss to the government exchequer," said the official.

The ACB moved the Vigilance Department (DoV) for prior approval under Section 17A of PoC Act to probe against Bharadwaj and Jain. The department forwarded the ACB's findings to the Health and Family Welfare Department and the Public Works Department (PWD) for their comments.

The health department opined that these issues could be looked into by the ACB and they have no objection for conducting the inquiry.

The PWD recommended investigation into the entire gamut of issues pertaining to construction of ICU Hospitals, polyclinics and 24 other hospitals, identify instances of corruption, irregularities and violation of laws and rules.

Rubbishing the charges, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the BJP and the L-G have turned governance into a "laughing stock" by "weaponising" routine project delays as alleged corruption.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.