CBI waits for nod to question Paswan in Bokaro recruitment scam

NEW DELHI: As part of the probe into Bokaro Steel Plant recruitment scam, the CBI has questioned candidates who were allegedly favoured in jobs in middle and junior level management. But the agency is still awaiting orders from the top to question LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan to seek clarification on his address found in the applications of many candidates.

Agency sources said the go-ahead for questioning Paswan, who recently walked into BJP-led NDA, will be given by the top brass at the CBI headquarters in the capital.

CBI sources said they have questioned several candidates to look into the larger conspiracy for jobs in the plant since kin of high-profile people were given recruited.

"Presently, we are analysing all the documents recovered during the raids. The Bokaro steel plant files have also been taken from the ministry for analysis," said a senior CBI officer.

Probe has suggested that Paswan's staff, during his tenure as steel minister in UPA-I, may have been actively involved in extending favours to some candidates.

The CBI had registered two separate cases related to alleged irregularities in the appointments in the middle and junior management level in the public sector undertaking in 2008 in which a former executive director of the plant and other former senior officers have also been named as accused.

Some other accused named in the FIR include SM Razi (son of Syed Sibtey Razi, former Jharkhand governor), Rajkumar Jatia (son of BJP leader Satyanarayan Jatiya) and Yogesh Chandra Patnaik (son of former Ranchi HC judge DGR Patnaik).

The agency unearthed the racket after raiding 36 places in Bokaro, Ranchi, Patna, Arrah (Bihar), Ghaziabad, New Delhi, Bhilai, Bhopal, Mumbai and Bhubaneswar including premises of Razi, Jatia and Patnaik.

The officials of the steel plant allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy in the appointment process by not giving adequate publicity to the vacancies through advertisement and accepting applications after last date in violation of norms.