Former chairman and managing director (CMD) of the state-owned Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), Amitabh Banerjee, has been booked by the CBI on charges of indulging in financial embezzlement in the purchase and sale of gold and other gifts, leading to the loss of public money.
The FIR was registered by the CBI on August 28 on a complaint received from Bhaskar Roy Choudhary, joint director, Vigilance (Intelligence), Railway Board, on February 27 this year. The agency has pressed charges of criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Amitabh Banerjee, who was suspended by the Railway Ministry earlier, after taking into account accusations in the complaint that “the possibility of more such procurements cannot be ruled out at this stage and private personnel are also involved in the issue”.
“The Vigilance Branch of the Railway Board scrutinised two files of IRPC… and revealed serious irregularities with respect to the procurement and distribution of gold and non-gold items. The complainant alleged that private persons are involved,” read the CBI FIR.
The Railway Board’s JD Vigilance Choudhary also stated in his complaint that “Subsequent to the scrutiny of these files, statements were recorded and serious irregularities with respect to the procurement/purchase and distribution of gold coins and non-gold corporate gift items were revealed.”
Clarifications were sought from IRFC and despite all efforts, IRFC officials led by the then CMD/IRFC (now divested of powers of CMD), Banerjee did not provide the list of beneficiaries of these gold and non-gold corporate gifts items. Further, no SOP [standard operating procedure] or laid down procedure for purchase and distribution of such costly items was provided by IRFC officials, the Railway Board Vigilance explained.
Banerjee defended himself before the vigilance inquiry by taking a plea that no list of beneficiaries of “such mementos and gifts distributed to dignitaries is generally maintained by any organization in our ecosystem to the best of our knowledge, and IRFC follows the industry best practices in all respects”.