The Bihar vigilance department, probing the multi-crore flood relief scam exposed by The Indian Express, has decided to question senior state officials, including the former Chief Secretary, involved in relief operations along with former Patna district magistrate Gautam Goswami who’s now in jail. Those who will be questioned include former Chief Secretary K A H Subramanian, former Relief Commissioner Ashok Vardhan, former Patna Commissioner Ramesh Abhishek and others who were in the Relief Monitoring Committee which used to meet daily to take stock of flood relief operations. Goswami was the nodal officer for the operations. A set of 30-40 questions has been prepared by the Vigilance department. These questions will be sent in the next couple of days to the officers by the Investigating Officer of the case. The officers have a choice: they can give oral replies or send it in writing. So far, senior officials had been left out from the ambit of the probe, leading to allegations from different quarters that only Goswami was being singled out. Goswami and another prime accused Santosh Jha, who too is in jail on the charge of siphoning flood relief money, told their interrogators that ‘‘relief operations had been carried out in consultation and with the consent of superiors.’’ ‘‘We now want to cross check their claim by asking a set of questions to senior officers associated with relief operations,’’ said a Vigilance department officer. When The Indian Express checked with Vigilance Director General Neelmani, he confirmed the development and said that the questions had been prepared to gather information and clarification over a number of issues that came up during the course of the investigation.
