The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), on Friday conducted searches at 25 locations including offices and residential premises of accused in the States of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha & Haryana etc. in connection to a FIR filed against 21 BSNL officials including a former general manager. This action was taken on the basis of a complaint, which was registered by the Assam Circle BSNL, Guwahati.
In a recent press release issued by the CBI on its official website, they stated, “ It was alleged that the public servants entered into conspiracy with Contractor & others and in pursuance thereof, cheated BSNL. It was further alleged that the Contractor was given work order for laying National Optical Fibre Network Cable through open trenching method @ Rs.90,000/- per km. It was also alleged that later on, the contractor made different pleas including no right of way from owner of private land, etc., to convert open trenching method to Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) method ( @ Rs.2,30,000/- per km ) in spite of provision of right of way, easement clause in the contract, thereby violated tender clause and caused loss of Rs.22 crore(approx) to the BSNL.”
According to the press release, FIR has been registered against BSNL Assam Circle officials including former General Manager, Deputy General Manager, Assistant General Manager, Chief Accounts Officer etc. of BSNL, Jorhat, Sibsagar,Guwahati and others including Private persons.
The searches that were conducted today led to recovery of incriminating articles. Further investigation is still going on.
