Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday sought answers from the state govt on allegations of corruption in the Jal Jeevan Mission, after a petitioner argued that enforcement action has been narrowly focused despite complaints pointing to wider wrongdoing.A division bench of acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Sangeeta Sharma directed the Enforcement Directorate and govt to respond to all complaints presented by the petitioner, and ordered the case to be listed after three weeks.Advocates Poonam Chand Bhandari, Abhinav Bhandari and Dr TN Sharma, appearing for the petitioner organisation Public Against Corruption, told the court that “while scams worth thousands of crores occurred in the Jal Jeevan Mission, the govt registered FIRs in cases of only 2 firms.” They said the complainant filed complaints in many cases—also placed before the court—but the govt “neither conducted any investigation nor registered FIRs in these cases, except for frauds committed by 2 firms,” alleging that “influential criminals were being protected.“Additional Solicitor General Bharat Vyas, representing the ED, told the court that the agency “also arrested some people.” The petitioner’s advocates maintained that action was taken in only two cases, alleging that “big fish were being saved,” and that no action followed even after they submitted complaints with documents to the govt.
