CBI registers FIR against six railway officials for alleged cheating, forgery

The CBI has registered an FIR against six railway officials for alleged cheating and forgery in tender works worth Rs 5.62 crore awarded to a private company in Punjab.

According to the CBI, Kay Kay Enterprises was awarded a total of 17 tenders for replacement of conductor, installation of LED lights, new AC feeder, aluminium conductor steel-reinforced (ACSR) cable, among other works, in different locations under the Firozpur division in Punjab.

The 17 tenders were awarded between July 2014 to October 2016 for a total cost of Rs 4.93 crore and non-scheduled items were incorporated in 15 of the contracts worth Rs 71.38 lakh allegedly without any proper justification.

During the investigation, the CBI found that a tender was floated in May 2016 for Rs 52,60,395 to complete the project by August 2016. However, the ACSR was not received till September 2016.

The officials allegedly conspired to waive an inspection by the RITES, a multi-disciplinary consultancy organisation under the Indian Railways.

A senior divisional electrical engineer was nominated for inspection in September.

Moreover, proper consignee inspection of ACSR conductor was also not carried out but a payment of Rs 5.75 lakh was made as advance and 20 per cent test check against the bill was recorded, the CBI said in the FIR.

It was found during the probe that 1,534 meters of conductor utilising existing pin insulators, shackle insulators were replaced and excess payment was made to the company for 300 kg ACSR conductor without getting the actual work done.

Similarly, over Rs 7 lakh was paid in January 2017 for replacement work of ACSR conductor, the CBI said.

In addition, a payment of over Rs 8 lakh was made to the company without receiving material against contract agreement. The material was found to be neither supplied nor erected at the site by the contractor, it said.

The agency said as against the demand of the 50 watt LED light, proposal of 18 watt facade light was prepared and approved and the contractor supplied 50 watt LED lights of local make instead of company approved.

Moreover, contracts were awarded for 369 LED fittings out of which only 259 fittings were found available on various sites during vigilance checks.

Out of those contracts, 310 fittings were given to Kay Kay Enterprises but they allegedly supplied only 200 and 110 were found to be deficient, according to the CBI.

After the investigation, the agency booked railway officials Sunil Kumar, the then senior divisional electrical engineer BC Azad, the then divisional electrical engineer Neeraj Sharma, the then senior section engineer of Ludhiana and senior section engineer of Ferozpur Ashwini Kumar for alleged cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

Two other officials -- senior section engineer of Jalandhar Bhuvanesh Kumawat and senior section engineer of Amritsar Ashok Kumar -- were also booked along with Kay Kay Enterprises.

The CBI has booked the accused officials under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code and under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.