Ex-govt officer in the dock

CBI raids former DG of Hydrocarbons

The raids followed after the investigating agency registered an FIR against Sibal for alleg­edly misusing his official position to favour some companies, including a US firm, in seismic exploration in India.

Chief geologist D K Rawat, manager finance and accounts TSLN Reddy, adviser Geophysics S K Jain, HoD Accounts K A Murli, chief chemist Savinder Gupta and adviser contract Anurit Sahi are also named in the FIR.

The DGH is the technical arm of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas that supervises licences and permissions for private operators. The DGH is mandated to carry out speculative geophysical survey with any company to upgrade the available data on hydrocarbons potential in the country, with the purpose of attracting domestic and international firms to explore and develop oil and gas fields.

 Sibal retired in October 2009 and a preliminary enq­uiry was registered on November 26, 2009, to investigate different charges against Sibal.

The CBI said the raids were still on across 15 places, including Sibal’s premises in Noida, Delhi, Mumbai and Dehradun. A case has been registered against certain officials of DGH and other private persons und­er Sections 120-B and 420 of the IPC and Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(D) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, on the basis of reliable information.

The CBI said it is alleged that officials in the DGH had given undue favours to a private company “in speculative seismic su­rvey in lieu of personal favours” obtained from representatives of a private company.

It was also alleged in 2005 that a contract was awarded to the private company for conducting seismic speculative survey “on nomination basis at an exorbitant cost” and this caused huge financial loss to the govt.

The CAG had recently sent its highly damaging report to the Petroleum Ministry pointing to financial malpractices in the country’s largest gas field, the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, being developed by Mukesh Ambani headed Reliance.

The CAG had charged the Petroleum and Gas ministry and a bureaucratic nexus with causing a huge loss to the national exchequer for developing D-6 block in the KG basin.

The capital cost of developing the field was allegedly hiked over a hundred times.

Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy had last month sought eight weeks to examine the CAG report and investigate the issue as per the files, documents and evidences. Reddy assumed charge of the Petroleum Ministry from his predecessor Murli Deora whose alleged proximity to the Mukesh Ambani has also come under the scanner.

Searches conducted at various parts of the country led to the discovery of  incriminating documents. One of the properties of  Sibal is reportedly awarded by one of the major oil companies in India.

The Central Vigilance Commission had also found alleged discrepancies in different works carried out under the tenure of Sibal.