Gurgaon: State Vigilance & Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) registered an FIR on Aug 10 against public officials and private vendors for allegedly siphoning off lakhs of rupees earmarked for rural development between Jan 2010 and Dec 2015, under the guise of installing street lights and high-mast lights across gram panchayats in the district.The FIR invokes sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (forgery and fake documents) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with sections 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Officials have ordered recovery proceedings to reclaim the siphoned amounts directly from the surviving sarpanches, gram sachivs, and involved vendor proprietors.The scam operated through a mechanism of procedural fraud, inflated cost estimates and ghost vendors, with officials from the Panchayati Raj engineering department routinely overstepping statutory jurisdictional boundaries to issue exorbitant estimates. Instead of adhering to standard HAREDA (Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency) rates — which fixed light installations at Rs 3,575 per unit, including labour — officials prepared inflated estimates reaching up to Rs 5,900 and Rs 6,500 per light.To fulfil govt procurement rules requiring competitive bidding, village heads and secretaries allegedly fabricated false quotations, with vendors submitting bids alongside dummy quotations from non-existent firms. Once the inflated bills were approved, funds were swiftly released to favoured supplier accounts via cheques, while several lights remained unbranded or were never installed.The scam unravelled following an inquiry initiated under Haryana govt vigilance directives of 2016 and subsequent tracking by the vigilance bureau. A detailed technical assessment led by executive engineer Suresh Pal Saini of the bureau examined physical installations, accounting ledgers and tax identification numbers (TIN).“Cross-examinations with the excise and taxation department in Sonipat revealed that key bidding entities — such as Rainbow Electronics, Ronak Electronics, and Bharat Electronics — had ‘no record found’ in govt tax databases. When physical site visits were conducted, supplier addresses were found to be completely fake or deserted, exposing the elaborate network of forged paperwork,” said the officer.The FIR points to a coordinated nexus of public servants and private vendors. Among engineering and public officials named: Jaiveer Singh Punia, SDO (electricity), Panchayati Raj, was charged with illegally preparing inflated estimates and authenticating bills outside his designated geographical jurisdiction, while Hari Prakash, junior engineer (Gurgaon), allegedly collaborated with him to prepare unauthorised cost projections. Sarpanches and gram sachivs of Bhondsi, Dhanawas, Sampka, Fazilpur Badli and Narheda panchayats are accused of clearing overbilled invoices worth lakhs without obtaining required resolution documentation, and of passing unverified bills from non-existent firms.“The investigation confirmed multi-point financial leakages across every audited village, including overbillings of Rs 3.98 lakh in Bhondsi, Rs 46,680 in Dhanawas, Rs 64,101 in Sampka, Rs 57,090 in Fazilpur Badli, and over Rs 2.2 lakh in Narheda,” said the officer.
