In a major relief to Maharashtra Women Child Welfare Minister Pankaja Munde, the Anti-Corruption Bureau has given her a clean chit in the chikki case involved in alleged irregularities in awarding contracts for material worth Rs 206 core for school children.
No evidence was found against Pankaja Munde by ACB
“The ACB has closed the case. There was nothing to confirm allegations against her,” an ACB official said today. He said ACB’s Additional CP Keshav Patil had, in a letter to MPCC spokesperson Sachin Sawant, informed the Congress leader that no “truth” was found in the allegations against Munde.
Last year, he had lodged a complaint with the ACB demanding an inquiry into the allegation against Munde and submitted a file of documents allegedly supporting the charges. Munde was charged of flouring procedures in awarding contracts for supplying items like chikki, mates, notebooks, water filters, etc, for school children. Munde had earlier said that she was ready for any inquiry.
CM Fadnavis has a habit of giving clean chits, says Sawant
“This is a scam of words. The allegations against me are
politically motivated,” Pankaja, the daughter of late Union minister Gopinath Munde, had said. The earlier Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra had purchased similar items at a cost of Rs 408 crore, she said. “You term that a ‘purchase’ and call our procurement a ‘scam’,” she had said.
She refused all accused on her for purchasing items at a higher price by the previous government and said the charges against her were totally baseless. Munde had accused the opposition of pinning the scam on to a BJP minister. She further said, there was nothing wrong in the purchases made through the rate contract system.
Sawant had said “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has a habit of giving clean chits and he has said that prima facie, he did not find anything wrong. Thus, we submitted all the documents we had as evidence to the ACB,” Sawant had earlier said.
