CBI Registers Case Against 9 NHAI Officials, Recovers Rs 1.1 Cr In ...

The CBI has registered a case against nine officials of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) including General Managers, Project Directors, Managers, besides 13 others including private persons, private companies and unknown officials/persons and recovered Rs 1.1 crore as also gold/jewellery during searches at around 22 locations.

It was alleged that during the year 2008-2010, the projects Surat-Hazira Port Section of NH-06, Kishangarh-Ajmer-Beawar Section of NH-08 and Varanasi Aurangabad Section of NH-02 were awarded by NHAI to the Consortium of private companies and accordingly, Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) were formed for execution of these three projects, the CBI said in a statement.

“It was further alleged that during execution of these three projects, the said NHAI Officers accepted money from private companies. It was also alleged that the cash/money so accepted/delivered was facilitated by sub-contractors of said private company by falsification of their books of accounts,” the agency alleged.

Searches were conducted at around 22 locations including in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh at the residential/office premises of the accused persons.

The searches led to recovery of cash of Rs 1.1 crore, fixed deposit receipts (FDRs) worth Rs 49.1 lakh, gold/jewellery worth Rs 4.5 crore from the premises/lockers operated so far and certain incriminating documents. Multiple property documents in the name of NHAI officers were also found, it said adding further investigation is continuing in the case.

The accused persons whose premises were searched include the then General Manager (DK II), NHAI, LP Padhy, the then GMs (Tech) and Project Directors, NHAI, CK Sinha and Vibhav Mittal, the then Project Directors, NHAI, DP Soni, SK Gupta and Suraj Prakash, the then Manager (Technical), NHAI, Anil Kumar Jain and then Managers (Technical), NHAI, KM Sharma and Neeraj Gaur.

The private accused persons include the then CFO of ICIECPL, Guillermo Garcia Moliz, then Chief General Manager (Construction) of ICIECPL, Jose Luis Murillo Esteban, then Project Administration Manager (Cost Controller-Surat) of ICIECPL, Eva Garrido Roda, then Deputy Project Head, of ICIECPL, Manuel Merino Gomez, then Head-Administration of ICIECPL, Gustavo Munoz Lopez, then Deputy Project Manager of ICIECPL, Javier Hidalgo and Cost Controller of ICIECPL, Alberto Lorenzo.

In addition, Proprietor of Kamal Construction, Surat, Chhedi Ram Bhavan Yadav, Partner(s) of Goyal Construction Company, Jaipur, Chhedi Ram Bhavan Yadav, Isolux Corsan India Engineering and Construction Pvt Ltd, Soma Isolux Surat Hazira Tollway Private Limited (through its Director PR Rao), Soma Isolux Varanasi Aurangabad Tollway Private Limited (through its Director PR Rao), Mahadeo Construction Company. Varanasi (through its Managing Director Anoop Kumar) and unknown officials and unknown others have also been named as accused in the case.AI reduces its flights to Lanka as crisis deepens