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CBI may chargesheet IPCL director Ramanathan

Joydeep Ray

The newly-inducted director of Indian Petrochemicals Company Limited, K G Ramanathan, who is a retired IAS officer and also former chairman and managing director of the IPCL, is going to be charged before a special court by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the Rs 22 million land scam.

Ramanathan, along with N M Bijlani, former chairman of the Gujarat Industries Development Corporation who has been running a consultancy NRD Associates, that is empanelled with IPCL, is also an accused in the same case along with a builder from Bharuch, said well-placed sources in Anti-Corruption Branch of CBI, Gandhinagar.

The CBI, which had registered a case under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Ramanathan and Bijlani in April last year, now is in the final stage of investigation.

"We are also going to chargesheet other accused in the case including builder, Jayantibhai Panchal, who was arrested by us in last December in connection with the land scam, and there is also director (finance) of IPCL, N Chander, who is also being charged similarly," said a CBI source. The issue pertains to purchase of 15 hectares of land for emergency township at IPCL, Gandhar complex in Bharuch.

"While correspondence was going on between IPCL and the GIDC for buying the piece of land, an amount of Rs 3 million was deposited by IPCL with GIDC as earnest money for the purchase. During pendency, the accused persons initiated a proposal to acquire land from private parties directly instead of through government agencies," said a CBI report, detailing the progress in investigation.

NRD Associates had issued a tender notice calling for offers of land and without authorisation processed the purchase proposal and finalised procurement of 35 acre from MP Traders, owned by Panchal, though the requirement was only for 20 acre.

Revenue records put the average cost of land at Rs 60,000 per acre but the land was finally purchased by the IPCL at Rs 625,000 per acre, said the CBI report.

Moreover, while entering the agreement with MP Traders, the land cost was split in to basic cost and cost towards locational advantage to evade stamp duty.

"The procedure was not followed and serious objections raised by the tender evaluation committee were overrules in this respect. While all this was happening, the then CMD, Ramanathan remained silent but he had the power to stop such anomalies," said the report.

Further investigations also revealed that the MP Traders had bought the land from farmers during January-April, 1999 for Rs 902,000 and the same was sold out to IPCL in July, only three months later for Rs 22 million.

When contacted at IPCL, Vadodara, a senior officer said, "Ramanathan was then with the PSU as an IAS officer and RIL has nothing to do with this case as it took place at a time when RIL was not in the scene."

Repeated attempts to speak to Ramanathan, Bijlani and Chander by Business Standard since last three days, yielded no result as none of them was available for their comments on the issue.

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