An alleged recruitment racket also involving ‘‘stealing blueprints and spares of the Light Combat Aircraft’’ at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) was busted today following the arrest of a senior official.Sources said a CBI and HAL Vigilance joint team raided the residence of the defence PSU’s Chief of Personnel and Administration M Mani and recovered six ‘‘brake pads of aircraft and secret documents relating to the manufacture of advanced aircraft.’’Around 300 job applications were also reportedly seized during the raid which lasted more than four hours.This comes soon after the arrest of Deputy Manager C Raghunathan, attached to the Foundry and Forge section at the company’s Helicopter Manufacturing Division. Raghunathan along with a ‘‘tout’’ K A Parameshwaran were remanded to CBI custody till December 20 after they were allegedly caught accepting bribe from a shortlisted job applicant.Sources said the agencies stumbled upon the scam while investigating complaints regarding recruitment to the post of executive trainee engineer. An applicant, Senthil Kumar, had complained to HAL Vigilance Director Vijay Anand that his appointment letter was being withheld, sources said. A resident of Kerala, he reportedly got a call on November 21 from Parameshwaran in Bangalore, informing him that he was one of the 100 candidates shortlisted for five posts. Parameshwaran demanded Rs 5 lakh in return for the job. The amount was scaled down to Rs 1.5 lakh.HAL’s Vigilance Department handed over the case to one of its managers, Pradeep Kumar, a former CBI official. A CBI team worked in tandem with Kumar and is said to have trapped Raghunathan when he came to collect an advance of Rs 25,000 from the complainant on Saturday.Parameshwaran was taken in soon. During interrogation, the duo reportedly named another senior official, Rajan, as being part of the gang. Sources said that preliminary investigations have indicated that a few more senior HAL officers are likely to be questioned.
