Pawan Bansal sat on CBI request to prosecute corrupt rail officials
10 May 2013 7:35 AM IST
The absence of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal from the Cabinet meeting on Thursday is being attributed to the full-proof case the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has built around the member of parliament from Chandigarh. Sources revealed to Millennium Post that Bansal was sitting on a request from CBI director Ranjit Sinha to prosecute a number of officials belonging to the Railway Protection Force (RPF). The involvement of these officials belonging to the RPF association is now being probed in the note-for-post scam.
Sinha himself was director general of RPF from November 2008 to May 2011 and had initiated a number of investigations against some key officials of RPF association after taking over as CBI chief.
Sources said that after gathering evidence in connection with disproportionate assets cases against RPF association officials, Sinha sought prosecution permission from the railway ministry, which was denied by the minister.
Sources also added that CBI sleuths are now looking into some of the old files, particularly those relating to the appointment of present RPF DG PK Mehta, who superseded 28 officers, thus violating the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seniority list. Mehta was appointed DG in May 2011. In that connection, the CBI is likely to question Gautam Sanyal, who was OSD to the railway minister when Mamata Banerjee was in office.
CBI sources said the agency is looking at a nexus between RPF Officers’ association and middlemen as the transfers, postings and promotions in the RPF are not based on merit. ‘We are on our way to grill several people from railway ministry and RPF in connection with the scam. Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is also on our list,’ a source added.
Though CBI did not confirm, Bansal’s personal secretary Rahul Bhandari, whose call records have been scrutinised, has already been questioned twice by the investigating officials. Meanwhile, the CBI sources said that they are keeping a tab on long list of relatives of Bansal, whose names are now cropping up on a regular interval in course of the investigation.
According to reports, Himachal Pradesh-based Theon Pharmaceuticals Ltd, owned by railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s wife, Madhu, and sons, Amit and Manish, saw its turnover rise from zero to Rs 152 crore – a period that also saw Bansal’s political graph soar. Theon Pharmaceuticals, which was established in 2005 and had declared zero turnover in its balance sheet in 2007, notched Rs 152 crore in 2012 by when Bansal held union ministry of parliamentary affairs, water resources, eventually going on to become the railway minister. Bansal’s sons own four companies, Theon Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Iva Healthcare Ltd, Isis Packaging Ltd and Bansi Raunaq Energy Ltd.
Amit, who is also a director of Delhi Public School in Mohali, is the second largest shareholder with 4,02,000 shares. In 2010, Amit’s wife Monika was also made a shareholder with 1,05,000 shares in Theon.
Similarly, the 42-year-old nephew Vijay Singla’s meteoric rise has coincided with Bansal’s rising political fortunes too.
Singla was nabbed red-handed by the CBI last week for allegedly receiving a bribe amount of Rs 90 lakh in Chandigarh.
Singla used to stay in a rented apartment in Panchkula, Haryana till about a decade back. In ten years, his fortunes escalated to such heights that he now owns a palatial house, several showrooms, a mall, schools and hundreds of acres of land. He also acquired businesses with diversified interests in real estate, cement, packaging, infrastructure and steel manufacturing over the last decade.
According to the documents available with the union ministry of corporate affairs, Singla is a director on JTL Infra Limited, Jagan Industries, Himani Steels Private Limited, Chetan Industries Limited, Jagan Realtors Private Limited, MVM Metal and Alloys Private Limited and Radian Ferrometals Private Limited.
Ajay Garg, another relative of Bansal, was arrested by the CBI on Tuesday. His companies include IEC Gensets Limited in Derabassi and Barwala, GFE in Derabassi and CMKL in Jammu and he is a major supplier of electrical equipment to the railways and a host of PSUs. IEC Gensets is estimated to be a Rs 200 -crore firm.
The most recent name which has emerged is of Bansal’s nephew Vikram Bansal whom Canara Bank had nominated to be an independent director on the board of a large insurance JV it set up with
Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and HSBC Holdings. Chandigarh-based Bansal, was recommended for the post by Sunil Gupta, a director of Canara Bank. Gupta himself is a chartered accountant for a number of companies owned by the minister’s family and became a director in state-owned Canara Bank when Bansal was the junior minister for finance and responsible for expenditure, banking and insurance.
Sinha himself was director general of RPF from November 2008 to May 2011 and had initiated a number of investigations against some key officials of RPF association after taking over as CBI chief.
Sources said that after gathering evidence in connection with disproportionate assets cases against RPF association officials, Sinha sought prosecution permission from the railway ministry, which was denied by the minister.
Sources also added that CBI sleuths are now looking into some of the old files, particularly those relating to the appointment of present RPF DG PK Mehta, who superseded 28 officers, thus violating the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seniority list. Mehta was appointed DG in May 2011. In that connection, the CBI is likely to question Gautam Sanyal, who was OSD to the railway minister when Mamata Banerjee was in office.
CBI sources said the agency is looking at a nexus between RPF Officers’ association and middlemen as the transfers, postings and promotions in the RPF are not based on merit. ‘We are on our way to grill several people from railway ministry and RPF in connection with the scam. Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is also on our list,’ a source added.
Though CBI did not confirm, Bansal’s personal secretary Rahul Bhandari, whose call records have been scrutinised, has already been questioned twice by the investigating officials. Meanwhile, the CBI sources said that they are keeping a tab on long list of relatives of Bansal, whose names are now cropping up on a regular interval in course of the investigation.
According to reports, Himachal Pradesh-based Theon Pharmaceuticals Ltd, owned by railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s wife, Madhu, and sons, Amit and Manish, saw its turnover rise from zero to Rs 152 crore – a period that also saw Bansal’s political graph soar. Theon Pharmaceuticals, which was established in 2005 and had declared zero turnover in its balance sheet in 2007, notched Rs 152 crore in 2012 by when Bansal held union ministry of parliamentary affairs, water resources, eventually going on to become the railway minister. Bansal’s sons own four companies, Theon Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Iva Healthcare Ltd, Isis Packaging Ltd and Bansi Raunaq Energy Ltd.
Amit, who is also a director of Delhi Public School in Mohali, is the second largest shareholder with 4,02,000 shares. In 2010, Amit’s wife Monika was also made a shareholder with 1,05,000 shares in Theon.
Similarly, the 42-year-old nephew Vijay Singla’s meteoric rise has coincided with Bansal’s rising political fortunes too.
Singla was nabbed red-handed by the CBI last week for allegedly receiving a bribe amount of Rs 90 lakh in Chandigarh.
Singla used to stay in a rented apartment in Panchkula, Haryana till about a decade back. In ten years, his fortunes escalated to such heights that he now owns a palatial house, several showrooms, a mall, schools and hundreds of acres of land. He also acquired businesses with diversified interests in real estate, cement, packaging, infrastructure and steel manufacturing over the last decade.
According to the documents available with the union ministry of corporate affairs, Singla is a director on JTL Infra Limited, Jagan Industries, Himani Steels Private Limited, Chetan Industries Limited, Jagan Realtors Private Limited, MVM Metal and Alloys Private Limited and Radian Ferrometals Private Limited.
Ajay Garg, another relative of Bansal, was arrested by the CBI on Tuesday. His companies include IEC Gensets Limited in Derabassi and Barwala, GFE in Derabassi and CMKL in Jammu and he is a major supplier of electrical equipment to the railways and a host of PSUs. IEC Gensets is estimated to be a Rs 200 -crore firm.
The most recent name which has emerged is of Bansal’s nephew Vikram Bansal whom Canara Bank had nominated to be an independent director on the board of a large insurance JV it set up with
Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and HSBC Holdings. Chandigarh-based Bansal, was recommended for the post by Sunil Gupta, a director of Canara Bank. Gupta himself is a chartered accountant for a number of companies owned by the minister’s family and became a director in state-owned Canara Bank when Bansal was the junior minister for finance and responsible for expenditure, banking and insurance.
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