Anoop Kumar Mittal was on Thursday given one year extension as the chairman and MD of state-run NBCC with effect from April 1. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved extension in Mittal’s tenure, an order issued by personnel ministry said. He took over as the CMD of the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), a public sector undertaking, in 2013 for a period of five years.

The announcement of his extension comes shortly after he got clean chit from the NBCC’s vigilance department. He was named in an FIR filed by CBI in about Rs 2,100 crore Pragati Maidan redevelopment project. On Monday, The Indian Express reported that less than three months after the CBI filed an FIR naming NBCC CMD A K Mittal among five accused in a case involving the Rs 2,100 crore Pragati Maidan Redevelopment Project, the vigilance department of the state-owned real estate company informed its Board at a meeting on March 8 that the CBI chargesheet failed to establish any charges against Mittal. It said that during investigations, the allegations against Mittal “were not found corroborated”.

Four days later, on March 12, Mittal was given additional charge of Director (Finance) of the company, alongside the post of CMD that he continued to hold even after the CBI FIR and subsequent chargesheet. Mittal’s one year extention after the vigilance department’s clearance comes even as Para 2(d) of the Department of Personnel and Training’s (DoPT) circular, dated December 14, 2007, clearly stipulates that clearance should not be given in a case where an FIR has been filed, other than on a private complaint. The CBI FIR of December 22, 2017, in the ITPO’s Pragati Maidan case, was filed after a detailed preliminary enquiry initiated suo motu, and not on a private compliant.