CBI books Megha Engg, 2nd-biggest electoral bonds buyer, and steel ministry officials in graft case

CBI books Megha Engg, 2nd-biggest electoral bonds buyer, and steel ministry officials in graft case

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) and 11 others for alleged corruption in connection with execution of a Rs 351-crore project — National Mineral Development Corporation’s (NMDC) integrated steel plant in Nagarnar, Chhattisgarh.

Apart from MEIL, eight officers of the Nagarnar steel plant; two now-retired top officials of MECON Limited, which is under the ownership of ministry of steel; and the general manager of MEIL have also been booked under charges of criminal conspiracy and bribery.

MEIL has been in the news since last month after it emerged as one of the top buyers (second biggest) of electoral bonds since 2019, according to the data released by the State Bank of India (SBI). The firm, as per its LinkedIn page, is a Telangana-based company that “operates through its major business lines such as water management, engineering, construction, manufacturing, transportation, hydrocarbons, power, process industries, and defence”.

According to the FIR, a copy of which is with ThePrint, a complaint was filed by a deputy superintendent of CBI in Raipur, addressed to the CBI headquarters on 18 March this year. The initial complaint was lodged by the chief vigilance officer, NDMC Ltd, Hyderabad, after which the CBI led a preliminary inquiry on 10 August, 2023, regarding the alleged corruption in the Rs 315-crore project.

Retired executive director Prashant Dash; director (production) D.K. Mohanty; DGM PK Bhuyan; DM Naresh Babu; senior manager Subro Banerjee; retired CGM (finance) L. Krishna Mohan; GM (finance) K. Rajshekhar; and manager (finance) Somnath Ghosh are among the eight officials of the Nagarnar steel plant and NMDC Ltd who have booked.

According to the CBI, they received a total of Rs 73.85 lakh in bribes.

The two officials of MECON Ltd — AGM (contracts) Sanjeev Sahay and DGM (contracts) K. Illavarsu — allegedly received Rs 5.01 lakh for clearing payment of Rs 174 crore by NMDC Ltd to MEIL against 73 invoices from Subhash Chandra Sangras, general manager, MEIL and unknown others.

MEIL & electoral bonds

The company, according to the data on electoral bonds, purchased 966 electoral bonds worth over Rs 966 crore between April 2019 and January 2024. The highest donation was made to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — Rs 586 crore.

The firm has also donated Rs 195 crore to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Rs 85 crore to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Rs 37 crore to the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), Rs 25 crore to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and Rs 17 crore to the Congress. Moreover, Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore was donated to Janata Dal (Secular), Jana Sena Party and the Janata Dal (United).

In October 2019, the Income Tax department raided the offices of the company. Following this, a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was also started. Incidentally, on 12 April that year, MEIL had purchased poll bonds worth Rs 50 crore.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)