Flex Ceos Arrest May Provide More Clues In Varma Case

Several loose ends in the case against former chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) B P Varma might be tied up after the arrest of Noida-based Ashok Chaturvedi, CEO of Flex Industries.

Chaturvedi is said to have been close to Varma and right till Varma's arrest, was known as the eminence grise of the CBEC headquarters.

Corridors would fall silent when Chaturvedi was seen at Customs House, the seat of the chief commissioner of customs in New Delhi.

Chaturvedi's friendship with Varma is not recent. The two knew each other from the days when the latter was posted as customs chief at Kanpur. The friendship thrived as Varma continued to climb the bureaucratic ladder and Chaturvedi transformed himself from a salesman of a Kanpur-based pan masala company to the owner of a business establishment.

Officials of the customs and excise department recount how influential Chaturvedi was and how he got his 'friends' to get 'lucrative assignments' during Varma's tenure as CBEC chief.

In fact, department officials attribute Chaturvedi's "meteoric rise" to the customs and excise department. In this connection, the CBI is expected to interrogate certain top customs officials involved in this massive evasion of Customs and Excise duties by pan masala industries.

"He is a creation of the customs and excise department," said a senior official. Official sources said Chaturvedi was a major beneficiary of the duty drawback scheme which involves duty refund based on interpretation of exports. His name came up during the CBI interrogation of Varma and his female companion, Bhavna Pandey.

Similarly, Chaturvedi emerged a powerful broker in the department for settling excise disputes of industrialists through his connections with top bureaucracy.

Chaturvedi's association with Delhi zone chief commissioner of customs and excise Someshwar Mishra also dates to the latter's Kanpur days. As a close associate of a Kanpur-based pan masala manufacturer, Chaturvedi was believed to be instrumental in having excise disputes settled for his principals. CBI officials investigating the Chaturvedi-Mishra case say that Chaturvedi had taken up several excise cases relating to pan masala manufacturers and had benefitted from them.

CBI officials say that Chaturvedi was to deliver Rs 10 lakh to Mishra, who was tipped to become the next CBEC chairman in six months, as payment for settling one such excise case.

Despite the fact that Chaturvedi's name cropped up during investigations into the B P Varma case, the CBI refrained from taking action against him because of his political links. Many senior bureaucrats from UP were friendly with Chaturvedi because he never shied away from flaunting his proximity to influential politicians such as Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, Union ministers of state Rajeev Pratap Rudy and Ashok Pradhan and journalist-turned-politician Rajeev Shukla, former Cabinet secretary and governor of Jharkhand Prabhat Kumar. There is no doubt that CBI sleuths were conscious of Chaturvedi's links when they decided to nail him.