The CBI on Tuesday conducted searches at 36 locations in 10 cities, including at the premises of former Jharkhand Governor Syed Sibtey Razi, a retired Jharkhand High Court judge DGR Patnaik and BJP’s Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh Satyanarayan Jatiya following registration of two cases for alleged irregularities in recruitment in Bokaro Steel Plant.
The alleged irregularities relate to fraudulent appointments in the middle and junior management level in the Central PSU in 2008 in which a former Executive Director of the plant and other former senior officers have also been booked.
The agency has named Junior Managers SM Razi (son of former Jharkhand Governor), Rajkumar Jatia (Satyanarayan’s relative) and Yogesh Chandra Patnaik (retired judge’s son). The trio was appointed as junior managers.
According to the CBI, as many as 13 candidates, including the relatives of the high profile personalities, were favoured in the appointment process that was allegedly designed to suit them. A Deputy Manager, Ritesh Singh, who was also appointed in a similar fashion, has also been named by CBI in an FIR. Singh was appointed as deputy manager in the steel plant.
The officials of the steel plant entered into a criminal conspiracy in the appointment process by not giving adequate publicity to the advertisement for recruitment, CBI sources said, adding applications were accepted after due dates and were shown in the records as received by hand.
The cases have been registered under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code including for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and relevant provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.
Some retired officials of the Bokaro Steel plant who held senior positions at the time of appointment, including then Executive Director Jivesh Mishra, are named in an FIR as accused. The agency carried out searches at 36 locations in Bokaro, Ranchi, Patna, Arrah (Bihar), Ghaziabad, New Delhi, Bhilai, Bhopal, Mumbai and Bhubaneswar including the premises of Jatia, Razi and Patnaik and their parents, the sources said.
The former officials who have been named as accused in the FIR include former General Manager RK Narula, former AGM AS Hebram, former Managing Director VK Srivastava, former DGM AK Mehrotra, former AGM Rajendra Nath Jha, former Chief Project Officer AK Singh.