Saturday, May 28 2005 18:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: The State Vigilance Investigation Bureau today (May 28, 2005) registered an FIR against senior IAS officer and former District Magistrate of Patna Gautam Goswami and 27 others, including Government officials and proprietors of two private firms Santosh Kumar Jha and Sanjiv Kumar, in the multi-crore flood-relief scam.

The FIR was lodged under various sections of Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code charging Goswami and others with committing fraud, forgery, siphoning off of Government funds by entering into criminal conspiracy with the owners of blacklisted fake firms, the vigilance department sources said.

Five of the accused were taken into custody by vigilance sleuths who conducted raids at different places in the State capital early today.

Goswami is presently staying at Lucknow after joining as vice president of Sahara Group following resignation from the State service. The State Government has not yet accepted resignation of Goswami and sought an explanation from him as to why action should not be taken against him for joining a private company even when his resignation has not been accepted, official sources said.

Official documents show that the State relief department had allotted Rs 13.48 crore to Goswami, the then District Magistrate of Patna and nodal officer, for carrying out relief in the 25 flood-hit districts. An additional sum of Rs five crore was collected by allegedly diverting the funds allocated by railway and State welfare department last year (2004).

Goswami paid Rs 17.18 crore to Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation (BSSIC), the sole organisation incharge of supplying relief materials.

In early April, the BSSIC said it supplied material worth Rs 22 lakh and has so far been paid only Rs 13 lakh and rest of the money, documents show, went to one B K Singh, an official of BSSIC, which later confirmed that Singh was not its employee.

Gmnl on the other hand, said BSSIC was appointed as a 'commission agent' to engage organisations through which relief materials were mobilised and supplied to the flood-hit areas and all the payments were made in the name of BSSIC at the advice of corporation's Managing Director.

Patna district magistrate Sudhir Kumar had said he had found no proper receipts or bills for payment of crores of rupees made by the officials to a firm, which appears to be fake.

Sudhir Kumar had said it was found on investigation that the money was paid into the account of Baba Satya Sai Industries (BSSI) instead of BSSIC, which was, officially, nowhere involved in distribution of relief.

After the hue and cry raised by officials and political parties over alleged swindling of public money meant for relief for poor during last year's floods, Governor Buta Singh had ordered a vigilance probe into the scam last month.

The vigilance sleuths filed the FIR after a month-long probe and also taking the consent of the legal advisors.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) had demanded a CBI inquiry into the scam.