A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths of anti-corruption branch (ACB) of Dhanbad on Wednesday conducted raids at two residential premises of Bokaro Steel Plant’s (BSl) officials in connection with the recruitment scam (2007-08) at BSl, a subsidiary of Steel Authority of India limited (SAIl). CBI sleuths conducted raids in the residential premises of Alok Srivastva and AKP Verma, Manager and Senior Manager at BSl, said PK Manjhi, SP CBI.
“The Sleuths seized incriminating documents in a case against them on the allegations of fraudulent obtainment of job with BSl in 2007-08”, added Manjhi. Both the said accused were earlier chargesheeted by CBI Dhanbad in two cases of Criminal Misconduct in 2012/13. Moreover, AKP Verma was chargesheeted by Dhanbad CBI in a separate DA case in 2013, said Manjhi.
Notably, 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 having their VVIP links.
To favour these peoples BSl 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 forms and testimonials at an address of POSTBOX no, which was an incomplete address, 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, the officials said.
“Razi submitted an experience certificate showing him having worked as Senior Manager at New Delhi based M/s Adhunik Aircon since the year 2004 while Raj Kumar Jatia furnished an experience certificate of Marketing Officer at M/s Kashyap Sweetners limited, both were found false during our investigation”, added the official.
While, Yogesh Chandra Patnayak (son of Retired High Court Justices DGR Patnayak) was found securing two degrees during the same time period of 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 also found with Ritesh Kumar Singh, son of ex-MD Bokaro BK Singh”.
It was found that the above four were mailed their applications through a private courier instead of registered post and their written examinations were taken in a Five Star Hotel instead of SAIl headquarters, official said adding, “their applications were also found without the applicant’s signature”.
At least 36 teams of CBI sleuths were conducting 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 were sacked in connection with this recruitment scam — Syed Md Razi, Raj Kumar Jatia, Ritesh Kumar Singh, Yogesh Chandra Patnayak, SS 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.
All were ineligible candidates and selected for the posts of middle and junior management levels in BSl.