Two Army ex-officers' houses raided over Tatra-BEML deal
18 Apr 2012
In a continuing fallout of Army chief Gen Vijay Kumar Singh's sensational allegation that he was offered a Rs14 crore bribe to approve the purchase of substandard Vectra vehicles, the Central Bureau of Investigation today searched the residential premises of two retired senior Army officers and a Vectra official in connection with its probe into the vexed Vectra-BEML deal.
Teams of CBI officials carried out searches in Delhi and neighbouring Noida at the residence of retired Brigadier P C Das and retired Colonel Anil Dutta.
The residential premises of Vectra employee Anil Mansaramani were also searched by the agency.
The searches come a day after CBI questioned three people - Vectra chairman Ravinder Rishi, V R S Natarajan, chairman of state-owned Bharat Earth Movers Ltd, and former BEML director V Mohan. Today's searches reportedly followed information gleaned from the questioning.
Their premises were already searched by the CBI early this month.
On 13 April, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a money-laundering case against Rishi and his firms, alleging generation of illegal funds in the defence deal between Tatra Sipox UK and BEML. Rishi's Vectra holds a majority stake in Tatra Sipox.