NEW DELHI: The Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) has registered an FIR against 27 DDA officials and five builders/contractors in a case linked to alleged corruption in construction of flats as part Signature View Apartments in Mukherjee Nagar in north Delhi, officials said on Thursday.
As per the complaint received, the officials said that the CBI in the FIR has alleged: “Due to substandard construction with inferior quality of materials, the flats were declared unsafe for living within less than a decade of their erection, thereby, causing wrongful loss of Rs 45 crore (approx.) to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and wrongful gain to themselves.”
According to the officials, two testing agencies - Bharat Test House and Delhi Test House - have also been named in the FIR, along with contractors Winner Construction Private Limited and Grover Construction Private Limited and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) officials responsible for building the 336 HIG and MIG flats in the apartment complex in 2007-09.
“It is alleged … that accused public servants of DDA in conspiracy with the directors of the companies … bypassed the quality control … in the contract and the CPWD manual, compromised the quality and structural safety requirements during the construction,” a senior CBI officer quoting the FIR said. Allotted to residents in 2011-2012, construction-related issues had cropped up in the buildings, forcing them to approach the DDA, he said, adding that a 2021-2022 study conducted by the IIT-Delhi at the behest of the DDA found the buildings structurally unsafe.
The study had also recommended that the buildings be vacated and dismantled immediately, he said.
In January 2023, L-G V K Saxena ordered the “immediate initiation of criminal proceedings against the contractors/builders/construction agencies and a vigilance inquiry to identify all DDA officials responsible for lapses/misconduct in the construction of the said buildings and subsequent criminal action against the defaulting officials”. He had also referred the matter to the CBI for thorough investigation into the matter.