Madhya Pradesh: High Court Orders CBI Probe After Jal-Jeevan Mission Finds Bank Guarantees Fake

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The High Court, principal bench of Jabalpur, ordered a CBI probe in the case of the fake Bank Guarantees worth crores of rupees for procuring tenders in the Jal-Jeevan Mission (JJM).

These comprise Rs 184 crore worth of Bank Guarantees by the Teerth Gopicon Limited in various bids. Teerth Gopicon Limited filed the petition when its bank guarantees were declared “unauthentic”. 

Similarly, MP Bawaria Limited also procured tender worth Rs 127 crore in Jal-Jeevan Mission. Total Bank Guarantees worth Rs 311 crore were taken for procuring tenders in JJM. JJM MD V.S. Chaudhary Kolsani wrote to the Economic Offences Wing for an FIR against the companies over the issue, but Teerth Gopicon moved court before that could be done. It submitted that “said Bank Guarantees were procured through persons claiming themselves to be officials of bank and assured petitioner of easy and early arrangement of Bank Guarantee.”

The firm said they were not aware that the said Bank Guarantees were not authentic until the JJM issued the impugned show cause notice. After that, they claimed they tried to contact the said ‘officials’ to issue proper Bank Guarantees but could not trace them, which is how they said they came to know of “the entire muddy trail of which the petitioner has been unintentionally being made party to”.

The company informed the court it had lodged a complaint at the Police Station, Raoji Bazar, Indore (MP), over the Bank Guarantees issued by a Kolkata branch of a nationalised bank on March 20, 2023. 

However, since the fraud is alleged to have been committed partly in another state, the court forwarded the case to the Head of Office of CBI at Bhopal “to look into and investigate the case whether the petitioner has been actually cheated by a third party or the petitioner cheated the respondent”.