CBI registers criminal case against 13 ONGC officials

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday registered a criminal case against 13 top officials of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation-Rajahmundry on the charge of causing ₹80-crore loss to it in awarding tenders to a private company.

Seven of the accused ONGC officials had retired. The First Information Report issued by the Visakhapatnam’s CBI unit cited the chairman and the managing director of the Deep Industries Limited, Paras Savla and Rupesh Salva respectively, as the accused along with the 13 ONGC officials.

Nearly six weeks ago, ONGC’s Vigilance wing had approached the CBI, charging that it had detected a fraud of ₹80 crore allegedly committed by the ONGC-Rajahmandry officials during 2014-15. Based on the complaint, CBI sleuths made preliminary inquiries and registered a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct.

Four years ago, a trunk line of Gas Authority of India Limited got ruptured, resulting in massive fire instances. Thirteen persons died and five sustained injuries then. Owing to this, the GAIL shut down its gas supply lines from 13 ONGC installations. ONGC suffered a loss of nearly ₹ 3 crore a day because of interruption in gas supply.

To overcome the crisis, the ONGC decided to hire Gas Dehydration Units (GDUs) in Phase-I and install them at Mandapeta, Pasarlapudi, Gopavaram and Mori of East Godavari district and Narsapur of West Godavari district. The Vigilance wing report stated that Arup Ratan Das, the then DGM, prepared estimates based on a single quotation as against the requirement of three budgetary quotations.

The lone quotation of ₹210 crore was from Deep Industries Limited for hiring the GDUs for three years. Ashok Varma, the then Director (Offshore), approved expenditure of ₹219 crore though he was authorised to approve only up to ₹200 crore. The Tender Committee considered the bid though the company had not met eligibility criteria, the FIR stated.

The mobilisation cost quoted by the company was more than 1.5% of the annual contract value. This was a criterion for rejecting the bid but the Tender Committee ignored this, according to the FIR. Though the ONGC Director Finance observed that hiring of GDUs could be given for 18 months, Mr. Varma wrongfully justified hiring of GDUs on the ground of urgency.

After registering the case, the CBI officials raided and searched 15 places at Rajahamundry, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Sibsagar and Bhubhaneswar. Places of search included residences and offices of the ONGC officials and private persons.