Substandard buses: CBI chargesheets CIRT,Ashok Leyland officials

Three CIRT employees including Balasubramanian (60),the then director from Chennai,Medha Hemant Bawadekar (53),the then head of Technical Directorate of CIRT from Sadashiv Peth and Deepika Nande (55),the then head of engineering division of CIRT from Aundh, five employees of ALL at Chennai — deputy manager Ved Prakash Gautam (38) from Uttar Pradesh,general manager Ashok Kumar Chopra (52) from Alwar in Rajasthan,assistant general manager (quality) Vinay Bharadwaj (52) also from Alwar in Rajasthan,deputy manager (quality and control) Vikas Verma (26) also at Alwar in Rajasthan,Achyut Medhekar (54),manufacturing head,Power Solutions Businesss from Erandawane and supplier of ALL,Vivek Gupta (37),director of Pragati Hightech Products (private) Ltd at Haryana and the company Pragati Hightech Products (Private) Ltd at Haryana were charge-sheeted by the CBI-ACB.

According to the charge-sheet,the CIRT employees abused their official position as public servants to cheat DTC by allowing supply of substandard buses. Bawadekar,Nande along with Vitthal Dhondiram Chavan,scientist/auto-lab assistant at CIRT prepared false and misleading lab reports while testing plywood supplied by ALL. Even as the samples had failed flammability test,the manufacture of buses using the same plywood had already begun.

“The role of Ashok Leyland employees Medhekar and Gautam was that they were deputed to CIRT to liason with CIRT officers from time to time with an intention to observe the progress and result of samples tested by the Institute,” said CBI special prosecutor Vivek Saxena and Ayub Pathan. Saxena added that Pragati Hightech Products (Private) Limited supplied plywood to Ashok Leyland and director of the company,Vivek Gupta,despite knowing the said plywood sheets were faulty,were forwarded to Ashok Leyland.

The accused have been charged under section 120B (criminal conspiracy),420 (cheating),465 (punishment for forgery),476 (counterfeiting device),471 (using a forged document or electronic device as genuine) of Indian penal Code and rection 13(2) read with 13 (1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act,1988.

The charge-sheet filed by deputy superintendent of police ,CBI-ACB Rajpal Singh has named 25 witnesses and 75 documents that include the CIRT test reports,test report of Automotive Research Association of India and others. All the five employees of Ashok Leyland represented by senior lawyer S K Jain were granted ad-interim bail on Thursday by special judge S N Sardesai. Extending the ad-interim bail,Judge Mahajan has called for a say of CBI-ACB on Tuesday.

Company refutes charges

Hinduja flagship Ashok Leyland has denied charges of the CBI in the chargesheet filed against five of its employees. The statement said there was absolutely no wrongdoing on their part nor any compromise on safety norms with respect to buses supplied to Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).

As far as quality control is concerned,the company said the besides internally conducted tests,as many as 76 items per bus are tested by government labs like CIRT and ARAI. This translates into over 65,000 tests (for the 875 buses supplied to DTC since September 2008),the statement said adding that any component that does not meet internal quality standards or lab tests,is summarily rejected.

The statement adds that in all this,there was an instance of one lot of nine samples of a flooring material that failed one of the tests at CIRT. Due to a procedural lapse,the buses fitted with the failed material had been delivered to DTC. When the management came to know of this,Ashok Leyland wrote to DTC asking permission to take further samples of the material for re-testing,as the company was confident the material was not defective,based on internal quality processes. The statement says the DTC,as a precaution asked Ashok Leyland to replace the boards and the company had complied with it and the buses were withdrawn in March 2010. Since then,these buses have been refitted with components passed by internal as well as CIRT tests and fully inspected and cleared by DTC inspectors.