The CBI on Wednesday conducted searches at three locations, including the residential premises of two retired Army officers and a senior executive of the Vectra group, in Delhi and Noida in connection with its probe of alleged irregularities in procuring around 6,000 Tatra trucks for the Indian Army.
Agency officials also again questioned state-owned Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) chairman V.R.S. Natarajan for almost five hours on Wednesday.
CBI sources said, “Mr Natarajan will soon be again questioned by the Bengaluru unit of the CBI in connection with some other acquisition case concerning BEML. The agency (Bengaluru unit) recently got the sanction of the defence ministry to probe the BEML chief’s role in some other case for which a preliminary inquiry (PE) had been registered.” The Bengaluru unit of CBI is probing several complaints against BEML officials, sources added.
As far as the agency’s probe of the Tatra trucks deal is concerned, CBI officials carried out searches at the residence of Brigadier P.C. Das (Retd) at Vasant Kunj in south Delhi and Colonel Anil Dutta (Retd) at Noida on Wednesday. Later, Brig. Das was questioned at the CBI headquarters in connection with the case. The residential premises of Vectra executive Anil Mansaramani at Noida was also searched by the agency.
“The agency officials suspect that Das and Dutta were allegedly lobbying for Ravi Rishi, chief of Vectra group, who was also questioned on Wednesday. After retirement Das and Dutta allegedly used to liaison for Vectra in the Army and were also in regular touch with Mansaramani,” sources claimed.
“During questioning on Wednesday, agency officials asked Natarajan to provide all documents related to the pricing of the Tatra trucks and also the original copy of the agreement signed between BEML and Tatra Sipox (UK) in 1997,” sources added.