Senior IAS officer held in Rs 125 crore scam
The
CID arrested additional secretary Debaditya Chakraborty on Wednesday for
his alleged involvement in a Rs 125 crore scam,the first time such a
senior IAS officer has been arrested in the state.RM Jamir,a retired
IAS officer who was the director of a PSU at the centre of the scam,has
also been held.
The arrests were confirmed by DIG,CID(operations)K Jayaraman.The two
will be produced in court on Thursday,he said.Several agencies,including
the detective department of Kolkata Police,were probing the scam for
quite some time but had not received permission to arrest the IAS
officer,sources said.Jamir was director general of the West Bengal Essential Commodities Services Corporation(WBECSC) and Chakraborty its managing director.The PSU was entrusted with the export of iron ore to a Chinese firm in a joint venture with Bharat Inmate,a private exporter.In the subsequent fiasco,the PSU suffered a loss of Rs 125 crore.
It lodged a complaint against Bharat Inmate and,after a probe,two employees of the private company-----Pratap Biswal and Aman Bansal---were arrested.The detective department submitted a preliminary report to the home department,pointing out that several officials of WBECSC were also involved.The government granted permission to arrest Sambhunath Samanta,a lower ranked official of the PSU,but not Jamir or Chakraborty.
In May 2011,Kolkata Police submitted a chargesheet against Biswal,Bansal,Samanta and Jamir.
After a change of guard in the state,the case gathered steam.Food and essential services minister Jyotipriya Mullick accused Kolkata Police of hushing up the case to protect some influential officers.After chief minister Mamata Banerjee intervened,the CID took over and in July 2011,initiated afresh probe against the Singapore based owners of the ship that carried the iron ore----Sea Quest Shipping Pvt Limited.
On Wednesday,CID officers called both Jamir and Chakraborty to their headquarters and arrested them.CID officers hinted that they found the involvement of more officials and they could be arrested,too.
Many PSU's India-wide have made losses since independence and in some cases were closed down or privatised or equity diluted to bring efficiency into the system. I have not heard of any officer being arrested in India just because PSU has or had made losses although it is a good idea to use the same yard stick to arrest all the past and present Directors of Loss making PSU's and fill our jails.The loss in the above case is on account of trading commodities which a dangerous ball game even for experianced players and appointing IAS officers at the helm to supervise trading was a terrible blunder and such mess up can happen only in India where even technical departments except Atomic Eenergy and Space are held by Non-technical IAS officers with poor knowledge of the subject. I hope this case opens the eyes of the Politicians and power Hungry IAS officers to appoint the the correct person at the helm of all affairs and PSU's.
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