Ahmedabad

Gujarat CID today arrested Sanjay Gupta, an ex-IAS officer and former executive chairman of the state-owned Metrolink Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad (MEGA), for his alleged involvement in a multi-crore scam.

“Based on a complaint related to economic offences, CID-crime unit of Gandhinagar today arrested Sanjay Gupta,” Director General of police P C Thakur said.

Gupta was appointed as the executive chairman of metro project in 2011. He resigned in August 2013. The government found some financial irregularities during his tenure and lodged a complaint with CID-Crime on April 1 this year.

“As per the complaint filed by the CEO of MEGA Rajesh Mehta, Gupta and six others allegedly siphoned off Rs 113 crore through forged bills. It is alleged that when Gupta was heading the PSU, the company made payments for materials which never arrived,” said assistant commissioner of police, CID, S G Parmar.

MEGA was set up for the execution of metro project here.

The materials were to be used at a construction near Bhat village near Gandhinagar.

“Apart from Gupta, we have also arrested Radhesh Bhatt, who worked as a manager under Gupta and is accused of a similar fraud of Rs 2.62 crore for which a separate complaint was filed in December against him,” said Parmar.

Gupta quit IAS in 2003 to start his own business. He owns Neesa Group which runs hotels. He had also started a Hindi channel called Jano Duniya recently but it was later closed.

Ahmedabad metro work was inaugurated by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel in March this year.

PTI