CBI registers case in Railway contract corruption

CBI today carried out searches at the premises of four railway officials after registering a case of alleged corruption in award of tenders for upgradation of platforms in Rajasthan.
CBI sources said the premises which were searched were those of then senior divisional engineer (Coordination) Om Prakash, then Divisional Engineer (North) Baljit Singh, then Divisional Signal and Telecom Engineer V K Sharma, North Western Railway (NWR) and then Divisional Finance Manager Girish Sharma (NWR0.
The sources said these officers along with Nihal Singh Gurjar, a contractor, were named as accused in the FIR which has been registered for the alleged criminal conspiracy to cheating and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

CBI alleged that these officers during 2010-12 entered in criminal conspiracy and in furtherance of the said conspiracy they abused their respective official position to hand over tenders for awarding work of goods platform and approach road at Khori station in Jaipur district to Gurjar's firm which did not meet eligibility criteria.
"The contract was given despite the fact that it was L-2 firm and did not submit its credentials with the tender offer which were required to be submitted as per tender conditions," a senior CBI officer said.
The sources said the tender quotation amount of Gurjar's firm was about Rs 8.44 lakh higher than the Royal Construction Company based in Jhunjhunu and still it got the contract because of alleged favours of the Railway officials.

The agency seized nearly Rs two lakh and incriminating documents during its searches at the premises of the four Railway officers at Jaipur, Hanumangarh, Agra Cantt and Ajmer and premises of the contractor at Alwar.