A trial and the missing accused

The multi-crore fodder scam cases involving Bihar government officials are to come up for trial in a Central Bureau of Investigation court, but many of the accused are absconding.

WITH the Rs.950-crore fodder scam cases coming up for trial in the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) special courts, 70 per cent of the accused are on the run. The CBI has submitted charge-sheets in 53 of the 55 cases registered in the Jharkhand State, which was formed following the bifurcation of Bihar on November 15, 2000. Two cases have been closed, one owing to the death of an accused and the other for want of evidence.

Informed sources in the Jharkhand unit of the CBI claim that most of the absconders have fled Patna and Ranchi for Mumbai or Saudi Arabia. "We have information that these persons have shifted base to big cities in the country or abroad. We are trying to have them arrested, and have requested the judicial commissioner to expedite the matter to procure arrest warrants and orders for the attachment of their properties,'' a senior CBI official told Frontline.

The agency, he said, had begun mounting pressure on the accused to surrender. "Our efforts to attach the properties of D.P. Kashyap, a senior officer in the Bihar government, resulted in his surrender before the designated CBI court. But there is no information about a good number of the accused,'' he said.

The sources claim success in arresting or securing the surrender of several absconding accused. Apart from Kashyap, 179 accused were either arrested or made to surrender before the designated court, they said.

Meanwhile, former Jharkhand Chief Secretary Vijay Shankar Dubey, deposing before the court of Special Sub-Judge II P.R. Das, hearing case RC-20/96 of the fodder scam on October 3, said that Rs.30 crores were withdrawn in three months against an annual budgetary allocation of Rs.3 crores for the Animal Husbandary Department (AHD) in unified Bihar. The case concerns a scam involving Rs.37.7 crores. Of the 459 witnesses, 102 have been examined. Of the 355 accused, 56 persons are facing trial. Three of them have died, while two have turned CBI witnesses. Dubey, who was Finance Secretary in Bihar, told the court that on January 22, 1996, he came to know that money was overdrawn in the piggery section of the AHD. He informed the Chief Secretary about the matter. Dubey told the court that a sum of Rs.3 crores was allotted to the piggery section every year, but Rs.30 crores had been spent within three months. He had asked an official, Maan Singh, to probe the matter. The official submitted his report on January 27, 1996. Dubey said that he had at that time sought permission from Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav to file a first information report against the accused. Laloo Prasad granted permission and an FIR was lodged on March 27, 1996.

Illegal withdrawal of funds from the department began in 1978 and continued until 1996. The amounts were billed against purchase of fodder, medicine and instrument against contingency bills.

For almost two years after the fodder scam came to light, the issue was not taken into legal consideration. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was one of the most vociferous parties to raise the issue, became silent after a point of time, convinced that maximum political advantage had already been made by painting Laloo Prasad as scam-tainted.

The scam case came to the fore once again when in 1998 the Patna High Court handed it over to the CBI. The court directed the CBI to take the investigation to its "logical conclusion'', meaning book all the guilty and recover the huge government funds swindled by the scamsters. Two years after the court's order, while the entire focus revolved round Laloo Prasad, who is one of the accused in the fodder scam case as also the disproportionate assets case and is now on bail, the basic objective appears to have been lost. Barring some Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gold bonds of some kingpins, the majority of the properties seized have been confined to known residential and commercial buildings owned by the accused. According to liberal estimates, not even 5 per cent of the money that was allegedly swindled has been recovered.

It is interesting to know the fate of the residential houses of the accused "attached'' by the CBI. According to informed sources, the scamsters, many of whom are out of jail by taking advantage of the 90-day bar, continue to live in luxury in their palatial houses despite the attachment orders. It is also pertinent to know the fate of the attached commercial complexes. As per law, the rent obtained from the property should go to the receiver appointed by the court. This, it appears, is not what is happening.

When the scam flourished, it was known that the scamsters preferred persons already having valid sales tax numbers as "suppliers'' to AHD. This means that the persons who were making the fake supplies to the department already had legally run businesses. "Hundreds of fake suppliers to the department, who have all made startlingly large amounts, had not been arrested by the CBI and were pumping in their ill-gotten money into their frontline business concerns,'' said an accused official. He named a plush restaurant located in the Fraser Road area of Patna, which, he alleged, actually belonged to a former AHD District officer". Also, a large portion of the scam money is said to have been used to finance a luxury car-hiring company in Ranchi (now the capital of Jharkhand), although the owner himself was not involved in the fodder scam.

Between 1996 and 1998, five major scams rocked Bihar. First it was the fodder scandal. This was followed by the purchase scandal in the Health Department. The department paid Rs.100 crores for medicines that were never supplied. The third scandal pertained to the irregular purchase of police uniforms in which top officials, even those belonging to the rank of Inspector-General and Deputy Inspector-General, were involved directly. The fourth related to the massive irregularities in the purchase and supply of bitumen for road construction. The fifth was a Rs.400-crore land scandal. The illegal sale of government khas land and tribal land in towns such as Ranchi by a section of officials first came to the notice of the then Revenue Minister Inder Singh Namdhari, through an anonymous letter. Namdhari asked Ashok Vardhan, former Special Secretary in the department, to investigate the matter. Subsequently, Namdhari admitted in the State Assembly that fallow government khas land and Adivasi land measuring about 200 acres (80 hectares) had been occupied illegally by some unscrupulous builders and various fake cooperative societies. This was in gross violation of the Chottanagpur Tenancy Act. The matter was initially ignored by the State government. It was only after the media raised the issue that the government allowed a CBI investigation. After a prolonged investigation, the CBI framed charges against the persons involved in the land scam.

The bitumen scandal came close on the heels of the fodder scam. Reports of massive irregularities in the purchase and supply of bitumen for road construction had come from at least 12 districts, now mostly in Jharkhand, and the amount involved was about Rs.100 crores. The alleged modus operandi was that transporters supplied less than the actual order and the difference was sold in the black market. The loot was shared by the transporters, officials of the Road Construction Department and politicians. The engineers who were expected to verify the supply of bitumen had benefited from the deal. One single instance of irregularity in the purchase of bitumen would reveal the extent of corruption indulged in by a section of officers attached to the Road Construction Department. Bitumen worth Rs.40 lakhs was ordered for the repair of roads under the Public Works Department (PWD) at Aurangabad and an amount of Rs.13 lakhs was paid as carrier charge. But not a blob of tar was made available to Aurangabad. An officer of the PWD, who took up the matter with the Road Construction Department and sought action against the transporter, was transferred from Aurangabad. The District Magistrate, who reported the matter to the government, also met the same fate. After the Opposition parties made a hue and cry in the Assembly, the CBI took up investigation into the case in 1997.

According to CBI sources, charge-sheets have been submitted in 15 of the 20 bitumen scam cases. Those charged include Bihar Road Construction Minister Illiyas Hussain and 18 officials, including some from the Indian Oil Corporation. One of the key accused, Ram Avtar Khaitan, has turned approver.