In February, the ED had conducted raids at various locations in Delhi, Varanasi and Chandigarh in connection with the DJB case, including premises linked to Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and AAP Rajya Sabha MP N D Gupta. The agency has also arrested retired DJB chief engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora and contractor Anil Kumar Aggarwal in connection with the case.

The ED’s case is based on an FIR registered by the CBI for offences related to alleged corruption and bribery in the DJB. It alleged that a contract to install electromagnetic flow meters was given to a company at “inflated” rates.

“The FIR alleged that Jagdish Kumar Arora, the then Chief Engineer of the DJB, awarded a certain contract to M/s NKG Infrastructure Ltd for a total cost of Rs 38 crore despite the fact that the company did not meet the technical eligibility criteria,” a spokesperson of the ED said.

The CBI registered the case against DJB and NBCC officials in July 2022. The contract was awarded to the firm in December 2017.

The ED also alleged that bribes were given to people linked to AAP and were also passed on to the party as “election funds”.

“The ED investigation further revealed that the contract of the DJB was awarded at highly inflated rates so that the bribes could be collected from the contractors from the inflated cost of the contract. As against the contract value of Rs 38 crore, only about Rs 17 crore was spent towards the contract and the remaining amounts were siphoned off in guise of various fake expenses. Such fake expenses were booked for bribes and election funds,” the ED spokesperson said.