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NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has issued notices to retired IAS officer Ashok Kumar Parmar and several digital platforms in a defamation suit filed by former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta over Parmar’s public allegations of corruption relating to Jal Jeevan Mission implementation in the Union territory. The Rs 2.55 crore civil defamation suit disputes claims by Parmar, who was principal secretary in J&K in charge of Jal Jeevan Mission in 2022, of a “Jal Jeevan Mission scam,” in which he had cited figures ranging from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 14, 000 crore, without backing these with any documents. He had sought to link the purported irregularities to Mehta, who as then chief secretary was his boss. Parmar claimed to have written to various agencies, including the CBI, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and the Bureau of Public Enterprises, J&,K regarding the alleged scam. He even shared information regarding these purported letters with the media. Four news websites that published his allegations have also been named as defendants in the defamation case filed by Mehta.RTI queries filed by Mehta with the CBI, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and the Bureau of Public Enterprises, J&K, elicited replies from each denying the receipt of any complaint from Parmar.According to Mehta’s plaint, every institutional check has contradicted the allegations made by Parmar. The Anti-Corruption Bureau of J&K examined all claims and found none substantiated, reporting no departures from procedure in tendering, execution, payments, or supervision. An RTI response from the Jal Shakti Department too did not confirm any irregularity on record.The plaint states that a large-scale scam was structurally impossible under the digital governance architecture introduced in J&K, which includes BEAMS for real-time financial transparency, end-to-end e-Tendering, PaySys for digital payments, PROOF for geo-tagged photo verification, mandatory physical checks, and public dashboards — all of which generate a continuous audit trail. It further notes that the chief secretary has no role in contract approvals, which are handled exclusively by contract committees.Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav has issued notice to all defendants and listed the matter for February 3, 2026, when arguments on Mehta’s plea for an interim injunction will be heard. The court will next examine the evidentiary foundation of the allegations and the claim of reputational harm.
