CSIR - NEERI case: CBI seizes valuables worth ₹35 lakh, property documents

MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized jewellery worth around ₹35 lakh and property documents of two flats on Wednesday in a major crackdown against 10 people, including a former director and four former scientists of CSIR – NEERI, Nagpur and five private firms. The searches were carried out in Nagpur, Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai as well as in Haryana, Bihar and New Delhi till Wednesday night.

The jewellery and the property documents were seized from an accused premises, said CBI sources.

The CBI yielded several other documents that are being assessed for their evidentiary value, agency sources said. The agency has registered three cases over alleged irregularities in the tendering and procurement of material by CSIR – NEERI (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – National Environmental Engineering Research Institute).

The agency registered the cases on a complaint from the vigilance authorities of the CSIR, New Delhi against the 10 accused including five public servants who worked with CSIR-NEERI (Nagpur) as then Director, then senior scientist and Head (Director’s Research Cell), then principal scientist, then Senior Principal Scientist and then Scientist Fellow of Delhi Zonal Centre and later Senior Scientist and five firms.

The first case registered by the CBI pertained to allegations that the public servants had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the accused firms, allowing cartelisation and collusive bidding, splitting of tenders/works, not obtaining the financial concurrence of the competent authority, in return for undue advantage. It was also alleged that one of the directors of the accused Navi Mumbai-based firm is the wife of a contractual staff who was an old associate of the accused then Director, CSIR-NEERI, Nagpur, according to the CBI.

The second case was registered on the allegations that the accused public servants conspired with the latter and abused their official positions to obtain undue advantage during 2018-2019. It was alleged that during 2018-19, a joint proposal of CSIR- NEERI and the accused private firm, for submission to the Thane Municipal Corporation for providing advisory service for the closure of the dumping site at Diva-Khardi at a cost of ₹19.75 lakhs was approved by the accused then Director along with the accused then Principal Scientist.

The third case was registered against two public servants and two private firms, including the same Navi Mumbai-based firm and another private firm. It was alleged that both the public servants, in criminal conspiracy with the firms, abused their official position to obtain undue advantage from these private companies and committed “gross irregularities in procurement, fabrication, supply, installation and commissioning of WAYU-II devices,” the source said.

WAYU (Wind Augmentation Purifying Unit) is an air pollution control device. It was alleged that WAYU-II, a patented and proprietary property of NEERI, was exclusively licensed to another accused firm and each time efforts were made to procure WAYU-II devices from the said firm on a single-bid basis.