In connection with the recruitment scam (2007-08) at Bokaro Steel limited (BSl), a subsidiary of Steel Authority of India limited (SAIl), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet against its thirteen officials in a Dhanbad court on Thursday.
With the charges of cheating, forgery, corruption and criminal conspiracy, the CBI chargesheet against the thirteen includes then Managing Director of BSl BK Srivastava, then Executive Director BSl Jeevesh Mishra, General Manager Om Prakash Gupta, GM RK Narula and Deputy General Manager A Hembrom, the CBI officials said. In recruitment at BSl in 2007-08 several ineligible candidates were appointed for the posts of middle and junior management levels in BSl under political pressure.
In a bid to favour these people, BSl-SAIl management violated the selection procedures; applications (for recruitments) were called through an advertisement in a Mumbai-based newspaper and applicants were asked to send the filled form and testimonials at an address which was incomplete, the CBI official informed. Investigations revealed that several people related to politicians, judges and even one Governor were favoured for jobs by the officers. Syed Md Razi, the son of Syed Sibtey Razi ex Governor of Jharkhand; and Raj Kumar Jatia, son of Satyanarayan Jatia a senior BJP leader of MP, got jobs at BSl on the basis of forged certificates, officials said.
“Razi submitted an experience certificate of working as a Senior Manager at New Delhi based M/s Adhunik Aircon since the year 2004 while Raj Kumar Jatia was furnished an experience certificate of Marketing Officer at M/s Kashyap Sweetners limited, both were found to be fake during our investigation”, added the official. While, Yogesh Chandra Patnayak (son of retired High Court Justice DGR Patnayak) secured two degrees during the same time period (1998-2001) as a regular student of Dhanbad law College and Jaipur-based Maharshi Arvind Institute of Science and Management, official said adding “several irregularities were also found with Ritesh Kumar Singh, son of ex MD Bokaro BK Singh”.
It was found that the above four mailed their application through a private courier instead of mailing with the registered post and their written examination were taken in a five-star hotel instead of the SAIl headquarter, official said adding “their applications were found without the applicant’s signature”. Notably, on the complaint of a Patna-based scribe Akhilesh Kumar, the first case was registered against then Managing Director VK Shrivastava and 14 officials, both working and retired, at BSl while the second case is against then executive director and seven other working and retired officials of SAIl and the plant, alleging that they favouring candidates having VVIP connections.
On 28 January, 2014, 36 teams of CBI sleuths conducted extensive raids across the country including Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mumbai and Delhi to unearth the scam. On 22 February, 2014, twenty officials sacked in connection with this recruitment scam were Syed Md Razi, Raj Kumar Jatia, Ritesh Kumar Singh, Yogesh Chandra Patnayak, S S Vora, R Kumar, MK Singh, MS Rajak, MK Gope, AK Paswan, SK Mishra, HS Kumar, AK Srivastava, lN Singh, S Kumar, B Sahani, P Kumar, R Kumar posted at Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro.