CVC says it will probe bribery allegations by US company
09 Jul 2010
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has said it would look into the allegations of bribery against officials of state-owned BHEL and NTPC once their names were disclosed by the US Department of Justice.
According to the CVC's chief technical examiner, V Ramachandran, the CVC has its chief vigilance officers in all organisations and they were supposed to carry out their job. He added the commission would scrutinise the matter whenever it was brought to its notice.
Ramachandran was responding to queries on the documents presented by the US Department of Justice in an American court claiming that officials of Indian PSUs including BHEL, NTPC and several state electricity boards had been bribed by California-based Control Component Inc to swing contracts for its products. (See: DoJ sues US firm for bribing Indian PSU executives for power contracts)
On 31June, 2009 California-based Control Component Inc (CCI), had pleaded guilty in a US court to having bribed officials in 36 countries including India from 2003 to 2007.
Denying any involvement in the case, BHEL said it could not comment on the issue in the absence of details, while NTPC said in a statement, "For the Sipat project (in Chhattisgarh), NTPC has not placed any direct order on the said company. NTPC is also not a party in the contract between any of the manufacturers and its equipment suppliers, i.e. the said party Control Component Inc." (See: NTPC, BHEL trash bribery allegations in US)
Ramachandran said the case had not been registered with the CBI and as and when it were to come to India, the CBI would refer the matter to the CVC, which would then look into it.
Topping the list is the Sipat coal-fired power plant of NTPC, for which CCI says it paid a bribe of $163,449 in two installments to an official of a Moscow-based company. The official identified in the documents submitted to US court is one Vladimir Batenko.
Meanwhile countering allegations in the US courts that their official were bribed by the US company, NTPC said ''For the Sipat project (in Chhattisgarh), NTPC has not placed any direct order on the said company. NTPC is also not a party in the contract between any of the manufacturers and its equipment suppliers, that is, the said party Control Component Inc,'' the PSU said in a statement here.
.webp)
