“The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against a former CMD and some other top officials of Government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) in the award of Leased Service Area (LSA) contract for deployment of Wi-Max services. Two private firms and two of their directors have also been named in the same matter.

According to a source, a case has been filed against Mr Kuldeep Goyal, former CMD of BSNL, Mr R.K. Agarwal, then Director (Consumer Mobility), BSNL, Mr Pradeep Nagpal, then GM, BSNL Corporate office and Mr Anil Kumar, then DGM (Staregic Planning), BSNL.

Others in this list include Mr Rajesh Bhatt, Director (Ampoules Auto Pvt Ltd which is now Starnet Communication, Kolkata) and Mr S. Manoharan, Director, Starnet Communication. Case has also been filed against Starnet Communication and Wellcome Communications of Chennai, the source added.

It is alleged that the public servants had entered into a criminal conspiracy among themselves. In furtherance of the said conspiracy, the accused public servants abused their official position and facilitated the award of franchisee for 3 LSAs to a private limited company by dishonestly and intentionally withholding the sale of tender documents in a fraudulent manner, and allegedly diluting the eligibility conditions to accommodate the said private company. All these caused an estimated wrongful loss of approximately Rs 535.50 crore to BSNL, a CBI statement said.

Searches are being conducted at nine places in Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata. During searches, the agency claimed to have recovered incriminating documents. The investigation is in progress, the statement added.”