Former J&K Governor Satya Pal Mallik in CBI radar over corruption charges in Kiru hydropower project

Seven people were named in a chargesheet, including Former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Satya Pal Mallik, relating to a corruption scandal in the awarding of a contract worth Rs 2,200 crore in the Kiru hydropower project.

The chargesheet was filed by a Jammu and Kashmir special CBI court.

The CBI has named six others including the Managing Director of Chenab Valley Power Project (P) Limited (CVPPPL), M.S. Babu, and its directors, M.K. Mittal and Arun Kumar Mishra, Managing Director of Patel Engineering Limited, Rupen Patel (deceased), and Virender Rana, Kanwar Singh Rana, and Kanwaljeet Singh Duggal.

Soon after the chargesheet, Satya Pal Mallik posted on X that he had been hospitalised in Manohar Lohiya Hospital since May 11 due to an infection and was undergoing dialysis for the last three days.

The CBI has initiated section 120-B of the Ranbir Penal Code of the Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the FIR, the CVPL board at first cancelled the existing tender on the premise of inviting a new bid. But in a board meeting, it granted the contract to Patel Engineering.

According to a report by Financial Express, the CBI has already denied a claim made by Mallik that he had been offered a Rs 300 crore bribe to clear all the files related to the case.

Staya Pal Mallik served as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir between 2018 and 2019, when Kashmir was under President's rule. He had been a vocal critic of the BJP administration's handling of the Kashmir situation.

In 2023, Satya Pal Mallik, in an interview with Karan Thapar, accused the Home Ministry of denying an aircraft carrier to ferry the CRPF convoy, which later met with a vehicle-borne suicide bomber attack killing 40 CRPF personnel in the Pulwama attack of 2019. Recently, on May 6, Satya Pal Mallik in an interview called the Central Government ‘shameless’ and 'must apologise' to the Indian public for the Pahalgam terror attack.