The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) is yet to track down the elusive agent who persuaded the Travancore Titanium Products (TTP) management in 2006 to purchase allegedly overpriced “pollution abatement” equipment from two European firms.
The plant was subsequently judged technically non-feasible and has been lying in disuse since.
The agency’s high-profile inquiry revolved around the allegation that the deal had caused undue pecuniary advantage to the private firms and resultant loss, an estimated ₹156 crore, to the public exchequer.
Investigators said they did not even have the agent’s photograph. Their efforts to trace him have been in vain so far. The suspect had briefly headed a company in the capital in early 2000. The middleman’s elusiveness had hobbled the probe.
Officials said the shadowy agent was instrumental in inducing top TTP officials to accord “blanket power of attorney” to a private consultant, who was not an original equipment manufacturer, to procure the costly machinery from the foreign suppliers.
The VACB has to determine the quantum of kickback, identify the recipients and trace the payment conduits. It has to report the progress of the investigation to the court once every four months.
It also has to detect whether the suspects had used the alleged backhander payments to acquire assets. Last week, VACB chief Loknath Behera ordered his investigators to expedite the probe. Subsequently, the VACB sought Interpol’s intervention to aid its probe. The agency wrote to the Secretary, Personnel, Ministry of External Affairs, to contact the British and Finland companies which supplied the equipment and also to trace the main foreign players involved, including the agent.
So far the agency has named five TTP officials as suspects in the case.