Gomti River Front Project: ED attaches properties of 3 engineers

New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said that it has attached five immovable properties worth Rs 1 crore of three enginners for alleged irregularities in the Rs 1,500 crore Gomti River Front Project of the previous Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh.

The project, launched by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, was one of the first cases the Yogi Adityanath government had recommended for a CBI probe.

An ED official here said that the agency has attached the properties of three project engineers - Roop Singh Yadav (now retired), Anil Yadav and S.N Sharma - under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The attached properties comprise a plot of Roop Singh Yadav, three plots of Anil Yadav and a residential flat of Sharma.

The ED has filed a case on the basis of the case of corruption, cheating, criminal conspiracy against eight project engineers following the case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation on November 30, 2017.

The official said that the agency found incriminating documents relating to the mode, amount, and manner of payment of bribes to the three engineers in their searches, adding these reveal that the bribe amounts were collected from contractors in cash or through banking transactions.

Investigations in the case also revealed that the accused engineers used financial profile of their wives to channelise the illegally earned money by misuse of voluntary undisclosed income declaration scheme, 2016 of the Central government.

In the coming days, the agency is likely to attach more properties of the accused, the official said.