CBI chargesheets official, contractors

Arjun RaghunathFirst Published : 27 Jun 2009 09:48:09 AM ISTLast Updated :

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Six persons, including a senior Railway official and a retired official, have been charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the massive corruption in the installation of electronic display boards at various railway stations in the State.


Former senior divisional signal and telecommunication engineer of the Thiruvananthapuram Division P K Sanal Kumar, divisional signal and telecommunication engineer R Krishna Pillai and six railway contractors were charge-sheeted in the Rs 55-lakh corruption case. The CBI Thiruvananthapuram branch which investigated the case had filed the charge-sheet at the CBI court in Kochi on June 19.

The four others accused in the case are railway contractors. According to sources, the officials were charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy with railway contractors by misusing their official position with the intention of extending undue pecuniary advantage to private parties and thereby causing a huge loss to the Railways.

The CBI has also found that the two officials were involved in a malpractice in the purchase of plasma television sets. While Sanal Kumar is still in service, Krishna Pillai had retired from service. The CBI had recommended departmental action against Sanal Kumar.

The corruption pertaining to the installation of the display boards took place during 2005-07 period. The two officials had collected rates and other details regarding the installation of the display boards from the Thiruvananthapuram- based Apt Micro System owned by one R Radhakrishnan.

Though Apt Micro System had expressed its willingness to install the boards at reasonable rates, the officials conveyed that the firm was not qualified and hence could not undertake the works. The officials, however, informally informed Radhakrishnan that he could supply the materials at the mentioned rates to certain other parties.

Subsequently, the railway officials obtained inflated rates from Bangalore- based M/s Konark Industries and thereby managed to increase the budgetary allocation for the works.

Tenders were later invited for the works and the quotations submitted by the four railway contractors accused in the case were accepted deliberately ignoring the fact that the rates were exorbitant.

Later on, as advised by the accused officials, the four contractors acquired the display board materials from Apt Micro System at a lower rate.

The contractors who are arraigned as accused three to six in the case are Sivananda Kalburgi of Bangalore, M.R.Srinivas of Ess Vee Communications in Bangalore, Vinayak Sharma of LMG Infotech in New Delhi and P K Vidyasagar of G S Teletech in Ernakulam.