BEL OFFICIALS, WHO EXPOSED GRAFT, STRUGGLE TO REMOVE TERMINATION TAINT

The corruption rampant in government offices, especially in matters related to defence pre-2014, did not even leave a matter of national and strategic importance like Integrated Air Command and Control Systems (IACCS) untouched. This alleged corruption was executed by some officials of Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a Government of India undertaking, under the Ministry of Defence.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

However, the three BEL officials—Man Mohan Pandey, R.K. Goyal, and Sumit Krishna—who prepared the inquiry report, which brought in the open the alleged scam that took place while awarding the contract to build the IACCS sites and indicted top officials of BEL for colluding with private companies, are now fighting a costly and a seemingly never-ending legal battle following their termination from the job.

The three officials were first suspended by BEL on 17 May 2019, less than seven months after they submitted their damning report on 3 October 2018 to the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of BEL. The CVO then, on his last day of office, on 29 March 2019 in his report on the scam, confirmed the findings of the three members of the committee and after adding his own findings, named multiple top officials of BEL for their role in the corruption.

In its response, an irked BEL management, led by the then CMD of BEL, M.V. Gowtama, who is now working with a private company after retiring from service in June 2021, terminated all the three from service on 30 September 2020 on various grounds including “accessing confidential documents beyond his term of reference and sharing documents with people who are not a part of BEL”.