Mumbai: CBI books senior GAIL official, pvt firm for cheating

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a criminal offence against a former Deputy General Manager (DGM) of the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) for allegedly abusing his position to issue fake experience certificates to a private company that made it eligible to bid for and win a tender worth Rs3.83 crore.

According to the CBI, the official, who was posted as DGM (Operations and Maintenance) at Navi Mumbai in 2017-18, was associated with the award of contracts for maintenance work on GAIL’s Maharashtra region pipeline system.

The official had proposed administrative approval of service contract for the work in Aug 2017 at an estimated value of Rs3.83 crore.

The CBI has lodged a first information report (FIR) on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and abuse of official position by a public servant.

According to the information with the agency, the tender committee had put up a proposal for bid evaluation criteria (BEC) of the e-tender published in December 2017. Three bidders had submitted their bids and the work order was awarded to one in January 2018.

The CBI’s information showed that while bidding for the e-tender, the company used two allegedly fake work completion certificates to comply with the e-tender criteria.

‘The fake work completion certificates were issued by the DGM in criminal conspiracy with the private company,’ the CBI’s FIR said. ‘The DGM abused his official position to... provide undue favour to the company, making it eligible and qualified for a tender worth Rs3.83 crore, cheating GAIL.’