Casting its net wider

FOLLOWING the latest raids, cases have been registered against officers of the departments of Customs and Central Excise, Income Tax, and so on, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). These have been brought under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, for allegedly demanding and accepting bribes and acquiring assets disproportionate to their known sources of income and for the abuse of official position to cause monetary gain to private persons or firms and wrongful loss to the government. As per initial estimates - as revealed by CBI Director U.S. Misra, illegal acquisition of assests worth Rs.14.28 crores by such officers were detected and Rs.80 lakhs in cash was recovered.

Prominent among the accused are B.R. Meena, Commissioner of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai; P.K. Aggrawal, Assistant Commissioner, Income Tax, Delhi; Ashok Kumar Gautam, Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), Berhampur, Orissa; C.M. Chandolia, Additional Director-General, National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand; Dr. S.P.S. Bakshi, President, Central Council of Homeopathy (CCH), New Delhi; Darshan Singh, former Chief Engineer, Department of Power, Arunachal Pradesh; Brigadier K.T.G. Nambiar, (retired); and Inspector Ishwar Singh, Investigating Officer in the match-fixing scandal of 2000 involving the late South African cricketer Hansie Cronje.

Of these, the case of B.R. Meena is illustrative of how high-profile officers have learnt to evade the CBI's net. The CBI says it has unearthed 18 plots of land (with an estimated value of Rs.90 lakhs) owned by his wife and children in Jaipur and his palatial house in Jaipur worth Rs.1 crore, and recovered cash amounting to Rs.23.03 lakhs from his residences in Mumbai and Jaipur and Rs.45.67 lakhs from bank lockers. Besides, his bank balance totalled to around Rs.20 lakhs, family jewellery was worth Rs.42.5 lakhs, and household goods were valued at Rs.27 lakhs.

The CBI team also reportedly recovered a bill of Rs.3 lakhs for a Rolex watch from his locker. Meena is also the proud owner of a Ford Endeavour car worth Rs.14.5 lakhs and a Maruti Zen car. Even though his assets amounted to nearly Rs.3.66 crores, Meena lived a simple life in Mumbai, commuting to his office by a local bus, and generally kept a low profile. Meena, a 1977 batch Indian Revenue Service Officer, had served as Income-Tax Commissioner in Jaipur before moving to Mumbai some 10 months ago.

But the latest raid is surprising because the CBI targets included also officers of departments that are considered less corruption-prone. The Director of the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat, one of the accused, for instance, was found in possession of assets to the tune of Rs.41.76 lakhs, which the CBI found was disproportionate to his known sources of income but for which he could not give a satisfactory explanation.

The officials of the CCH would also seem to be unlikely targets in an anti-corruption drive, but the CBI found it was not the case. Dr. S.P.S. Bakshi, Dr. Ramji Singh, Vice-President, and Dr. Lalit Verma, Secretary, of the Council, the CBI alleged, irregularly granted recognition to homoeopathic medical colleges and arbitrarily granted extension of recognition to eight colleges, including the Solan Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital owned by Bakshi, though they did not meet the stipulated requirements. For granting recognition to a medical college in Hoshiarpur, Bakshi allegedly asked the applicants to purchase medicines worth Rs.5 lakhs from his company, Bakson Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Private Limited. When the demand was not complied with, application for recognition was rejected, despite the college being otherwise eligible, it is alleged.

The case of Ishwar Singh would appear to be a mystery, because there is no link between his investigation into the match fixing-cum-betting scandal and his disproportionate wealth as detected by the CBI. The CBI's preliminary investigation has revealed that he possessed assets to the tune of Rs.40 lakhs, which are disproportionate to his known sources of income. "He became close to a big business group and secured petrol pump dealerships for his relatives, but without reporting this to the office, he invested his income in this business, and this has resulted in his disproportionate assets", said a CBI source. The Delhi Police has transferred Ishwar Singh from the Tughlak Road police station to the Foreign Regional Registration Office in New Delhi.

Besides, the CBI has registered D.A. cases against an Institute Engineer in the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, an Assistant Sanitory Inspector, and a Director of the Bureau of Indian Standards, Mumbai, for amassing huge wealth.

For the first time, the CBI has raided and registered cases against private companies such as Xerox Modi Corporation (for allegedly colluding with corrupt BSNL officials), Glough Engineering (for wrongful claim of insurance premium, causing a loss of Rs.94 crores to the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) and Pepco. The CBI's case against the director of Pepco and senior officers of the erstwhile Global Trust Bank pertains to fraudulent sanction of $15.5 million. This was allegedly done when even the land for the project had not been acquired. Subsequently, Rs.16 crores was released to meet project expenses based on misrepresentation of facts, the CBI says. No security was obtained, it alleges. The CBI can be expected to shed more light on this kind of nexus between the public sector and the private sector in the coming days.