New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked an NGO, which has filed a PIL for a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into alleged irregularities in various tendering process undertaken by PSU SAIL, to make specific allegations.
"File a better affidavit giving details of specific allegations as the petition has the allegations which are general in nature," a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw directed advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL).
It listed the matter for further hearing on September 24.
Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for domestic steel giant Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), alleged the petitioner NGO has indulged in "fishing inquiry".
During the hearing, Bhushan alleged "there is a racket of cartelisation" going on in SAIL in which no competitive bidding is being held which is "contrary to the integrity pact".
CPIL in its plea has alleged that there was a "strong suspicion of acts of corruption" by officials of SAIL in award of various tenders to private firms.
It has also sought cancellation of such "tenders or contracts".
"The process of awarding contracts at inflated costs to a few companies for obscene amounts of profit has already resulted in a loss of approximated Rs 25-30,000 crores to the public exchequer.
"According the proposed expansion plan of SAIL, the capacity is further sought to be expanded to 40 MTPA by the year 2020, which, at the current cost of expansion, would cause a further loss of Rs 40,000 crores and a total loss of Rs 72,000 crores," the PIL has said.
The plea has sought a direction for a "thorough probe by a SIT or CBI, under the supervision of the high court, "into the alleged collusion between officials of SAIL and representatives of private companies, in particular respondent 3 Sanjay Pasari, to award contracts over the last eight years, for values that were more than the original budget estimates and where the number of competitors was kept to a small number."
Several recent tenders issued by SAIL indicate that new qualification criteria have been added or amended to ensure disqualification of companies that were otherwise technically competent, it has said.
The plea, which has made Steel Ministry, SAIL, CVC and CBI as parties to the PIL, also said Pasari has been involved as a "middleman in various tendering processes of SAIL in spite of his indictment by the US Justice department and finding that he has over Rs 2400 crores of money obtained through illegal means stashed in Swiss Bank accounts."
There has been a huge inflation in the budget of SAIL's proposed expansion programme, from Rs 35,000 crores to Rs 70,169 crores, in just 4 years, for an expansion in production capacity of SAIL from 14 to 26 tonnes per annum, the plea said.
The plea has also sought appropriate directions from the court to rectify "inherent conflicts of interest prevalent in the system of Independent External Monitors who are meant to oversee the functioning of SAIL".
"Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ directing the Union of India, through an appropriate agency, to recover the illicit money that Respondent No 3 Sanjay Pasari has allegedly acquired through corrupt dealings with various PSUs in India....," it has said.
"Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ directing the Union of India, through an appropriate agency such as the CAG, to conduct a thorough audit into the accounts of SAIL, in order to determine the actual reasons for the inflation of SAIL's budget estimates for its expansion programme from Rs 35,000 crores to Rs 72,000 crores, as well as the reasons why the expansion of SAIL on average is costing Rs 2,500 crores per MTPA more than other private companies undergoing similar expansion drives," it has said.
