The Delhi government on Thursday referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) the alleged land acquisition scam case amounting to Rs 850 crore in Dwarka Expressway project. Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar is accused of inflating the cost of land 22 times to benefit a company linked to his son Karan Chauhan.

Kumar has denied any wrongdoing and alleged that "mudslinging" was being done by people with "vested interests" against whom vigilance action was taken for corruption.

The 670-page report of Vigilance Minister Atishi was earlier submitted to Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office. It has demanded Kumar's suspension and claimed that the scale of "undue benefits" in the matter was over Rs 850 crore.

This comes at a time when several senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders — Manish Sisodia, Satyendra Jain, Sanjay Singh — are in jail. Summons were issued to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal but he did not appear before the ED in the liquorgate scam case.

The case

The compensation for 19-acre land in South West Delhi's Bamnoli village for NHAI's Dwarka expressway was raised from Rs 41 crore to Rs 353 crore but the report claimed that the "scale of undue benefits" in the deal was more than Rs 897 crore. Atishi's report was an outcome of an inquiry into a complaint alleging that Karan was employed by a person who was a relative of benefitted landowners in Bamnoli.

With inputs from PTI