CBI raids houses of two HNL officials, two others

Kochi, Nov 16 (UNI) The CBI today raided four places, including the houses of two officials of the public sector Hindustan Newsprint Ltd. (HNL) at Vellore in Kottayam, after registering a corruption case against some HNL officials and four others in a Rs 75 lakh fraud in the import of old newsprint.

Superintendent of Police, CBI, Kochi, T Vikram said here this evening that certain incriminating documents had been seized during the raids and these were under scrutiny.

The raids, which started this morning, were conducted at the houses of HNL officials Govindaraj, Senior Manager, Purchase, and Bhaskara Pillai, Manager, Purchase, in the HNL complex, the office of Kochi-based Fast and Safe Transport Ltd. at T A B Road and the residence of Mr Sujil Bose, chairman of Green Worth Marketing Ltd., at Thrikkakara here.

However, no arrests had been made so far.

Mr Vikram said that a corruption case had been registered under section 120-B IPC read with sections 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections 468, 471, 420 and 34 IPC.

The case had been registered against unknown public servants of HNL and Mr M A Nazar, Managing Director, Fast and Safe Transports, Mr Vigil Bose, chairman, Green Worth Consulting, Reston, USA, Mr Kerry J Lee, certified marine surveyor, Fremont, USA and Mr M C Sujil Bose.

According to Mr Vikram, the case pertained to a global tender issued by the HNL in October, 2002, for import of old and used newsprint for its De-Inking Plant, commissioned in December, 2002.

Against this tender, Fast and Safe Transports submitted an offer for supply of 7500 MT of old newspapers and 2500 MT of old magazines before March 31, 2003 and thereafter 2500 MT every month through their overseas corporate office situated in Dubai. As their rate of US1 per MT was the lowest, HNL opened two Letters of Credit (LC) in favour of M/s West Asia Commercial House, Dubai, for these supplies.

One of the LCs was cancelled as the firm did not make any supply while the other was short closed because the firm supplied only part of the material.

Subsequently, M/s Fast and Safe informed HNL that West Asia Commecial House will not be able to continue the supplies and requested it to release an order on M/s Green Worth Consulting, USA, on the same terms and conditions.

Accepting this, HNL placed supplies on Green Worth Consulting with the payment terms of 85 per cent through an irrevocable LC and balance 15 per cent on receipt of the item and its acceptance, subject to production of a performance bank guarantee from a scheduled Indian commercial bank or foreign bank having branches in India.

The first shipment of 20 containers was cleared from Cochin Port, of which six containers were transported to HNL on May eight, 2003.

Upon opening, it was found that the containers contained old blankets, used bottles, old cain chairs and municipal wastes. HNL did not clear the second shipment but opened three containers of the shipment at the request of the supplier's representative and found empty cardboard cartons, waste rubber parts.

While HNL rejected both the shipment requested for the refund, it was found that M/s Green Worth had already encashed both LCs on the basis of fabricated documents.

the total monetary loss to HNL as on August 30, 2003, works out to US7095.56, equal to Rs 75,45,382, besides customs duty, port dues and transportation charges. HNL's claims on the foreign firms remain unsettled. The company filed a police complaint on September 11, 2003 and a case was registered by the crime branch against the four above mentioned individuals.

The case was subsequently transferred to the CBI by the Kerala Government.

UNI ARC DK1947