CVC to look into bribe charges against PSU officials

"We have our chief vigilance officers in all organisations and they are suppose to carry out their job," the CVC's Chief Technical Examiner, V Ramachandran, told reporters, adding that the commission will scrutinise the matter whenever it is brought to its notice.

Ramachandran said this while responding to queries on the documents presented by the US Department of Justice in an American court stating that California-based Control Component Inc had bribed officials of Indian PSUs, including BHEL, NTPC and several state electricity boards, to bag orders.

California-based Control Component Inc (CCI) on June 31, 2009, pleaded guilty before the US court to having committing bribery in 36 countries from 2003 to 2007.

While NTPC denied any involvement in the case, BHEL said it could not comment on the issue in the absence of details.

"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," NTPC had said in a statement.
"It is a general statement with no specific details, BHEL can comment only when full details (as put up by Control Component to the US court) are accessible," a BHEL official had said.

Ramachandran said, "The case has not been registered with the CBI. As and when it comes to India, the CBI will refer the matter to us. Then, we will look into it."

India, besides China, the UAE and Qatar, are some of the major countries where CCI indulged in unfair practices to bag contracts, as per the court documents.

According to the documents, the payments related to India were made between 2004 and 2007.

Topping the list is the Sipat coal-fired power plant of NTPC, for which CCI paid a bribe of USD 163,449 in two installments to an official of a Moscow-based company, who has been identified as Vladimir Batenko in the documents submitted by the US Department of Justice before the US court.