'BRIBE WAS PAID TO GET PENALTY WAIVED IN DELHI CCTV PROJECT'

‘Rs 7 crore was arranged to be paid to Satyendra Jain for condoning penalty of Rs 16 crore imposed on BEL’.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

On 4 September 2019, an internal inquiry proceeding involving officials of Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) was being held in Sahibabad-based BEL guest house. The said proceedings were being done against three officials of BEL—Man Mohan Pandey, R.K. Goyal, and Sumit Krishna—who prepared an inquiry report, which had brought into the open the alleged scam that took place while awarding the contract to build the sensitive Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) sites and indicted top officials of BEL for colluding with private companies. The CBI last month filed an FIR in this alleged scam.

After these three officials submitted the damning report, they were first suspended by BEL in May 2019 after which the inquiry proceedings were started which went on till September 2020 when the three were ultimately terminated from their jobs. The BEL had appointed the then Deputy General Manager, Human Resources D.K. Singhla and Jeetendra Singh who was the then Assistant General Manager as its representative in the inquiry committee, while Suresh Katiyal, a General Manager level officer with BEL, who went on a private defence company soon after his retirement, was appointed as the Inquiry Officer.