Allegations that subsidised rice meant for Delhi’s poor was diverted into private commercial sales have placed the city’s food-supply administration under scrutiny, with AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter.
In a supplementary complaint submitted to the CBI on September 24, Bharadwaj alleged that five crore kilograms of subsidised rice was diverted and claimed that Food and Civil Supplies Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa repeatedly approved procurement requests linked to the alleged scheme. The allegations have not been independently established in the material supplied for this report.
Bharadwaj also asked the agency to secure ministry records and electronic communications from January to June 2026, arguing that the material could be relevant to the investigation and should be protected from possible tampering. His complaint, as reported by Millennium Post, seeks the questioning of individuals named in an earlier written reply by suspended Additional Commissioner Arun Kumar Jha.
The case centres on the movement and use of subsidised rice, an administrative chain that involves procurement requests, allocations, distribution records and utilisation certificates. These records are important because subsidised food supplies are intended for public distribution rather than resale through private commercial channels.
According to Bharadwaj, Jha’s written reply stated that he acted on the minister’s instructions. Bharadwaj also cited a departmental show-cause notice that described recommendations made to the Food Corporation of India as illegal and unauthorised. The supplied report does not include the full text of Jha’s reply or the show-cause notice, nor does it provide an independent response from Sirsa or the Food and Civil Supplies Department.
A specific allocation request cited in the complaint was made by the North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation, or NERAMAC, on January 7, 2026. The organisation allegedly sought a weekly allocation of 31,000 metric tonnes of rice at Rs 23.20 per kilogram. Bharadwaj claimed that Sirsa directed the request for “positive consideration” on April 8 and endorsed an identical request on May 4.
The allegation raises questions about the administrative checks that should precede a fresh allocation. Bharadwaj claimed that the earlier allocation did not have corresponding distribution records and utilisation certificates. Such records would ordinarily be central to establishing whether an earlier supply had reached its intended recipients and whether a further allocation was justified. The supplied material does not establish whether the records existed, whether they were examined by the department or whether the alleged approvals resulted in an unauthorised diversion.
Bharadwaj further alleged that the rice was sold to commercial entities in Haryana at Rs 46 per kilogram through private intermediaries. He calculated an alleged subsidy gap of Rs 13.67 crore per week. This figure is presented in the complaint and has not been independently verified in the supplied report. The material also does not establish the volume of rice actually sold, the identity of the intermediaries or the commercial entities involved.
The alleged price difference illustrates the public-finance dimension of the dispute. A subsidised commodity sold into private channels could create a gap between the price at which the supply was procured or allocated and the price at which it was commercially sold. But determining whether such a gap represents a loss to the public exchequer would require examination of procurement documents, allocation orders, transport records, warehouse registers, distribution certificates, payment trails and sale records.
The complaint also points to an institutional accountability question: how responsibility is distributed when a subsidised food allocation passes through multiple administrative levels. Requests may be initiated by an organisation, examined by departmental officials, referred to the Food Corporation of India and approved or rejected by designated authorities. Establishing responsibility would therefore require the CBI or another competent authority to reconstruct the decision trail rather than rely only on political allegations.
The role of suspended Additional Commissioner Arun Kumar Jha is part of that unresolved chain. Bharadwaj’s account says Jha’s written reply referred to ministerial instructions, but the report does not reproduce the full response or clarify the circumstances in which it was submitted. It also does not state the grounds for Jha’s suspension or whether any departmental or criminal proceedings are already under way.
The reported reference to a departmental show-cause notice adds another document to the matter, but its evidentiary significance remains unclear without the complete notice and the response to it. A notice records an authority’s prima facie concern or allegation; it is not, by itself, a final finding of wrongdoing. The same distinction applies to the political complaint and to the allegations regarding the minister’s role.
For Delhi residents, the issue is not limited to a dispute between political parties. Subsidised food programmes depend on administrative records that can show whether public supplies reached eligible beneficiaries. When those records are missing, disputed or incomplete, it becomes difficult to establish whether the failure occurred during procurement, allocation, transport, storage, distribution or commercial resale.
The CBI’s response to the supplementary complaint is not stated in the supplied report. It is also not clear whether the agency has registered a case, begun a preliminary inquiry, sought the records identified by Bharadwaj or contacted the officials and organisations named in the complaint. No response from Sirsa or the Delhi government is included in the source material.
The next stage will depend on whether the allegations are supported by primary records and whether the competent agency determines that a formal investigation is warranted. Until the complaint, departmental documents and allocation records are independently examined, the alleged diversion, the claimed subsidy gap and the minister’s alleged role should be treated as claims rather than established facts.
