Officer under Vigilance shadow

Reacting to Yadav’s statement, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said he was prepared to order any kind of inquiry, including a judicial probe, into the matter if the House so wished. Stating that the person in question was from the Civil Aviation Ministry, Kumar said options are given to choose the person to conduct the inquiry.

However, sources said that Yadav and Mamata may not be very far from the truth.

There are two Vigilance cases slapped against Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS) Mahesh Chand, who conducted the inquiry into the September derailment in which 150 persons were killed. His final report, submitted recently to the Railway Board, stated ‘‘sabotage’’ to be the cause of the accident — something that Railway Minister Nitish Kumar had been stressing on from the day of the accident itself.

Sources said that Mahesh Chand had been chargesheeted in both the cases, with ‘‘minor penalty’’ recommended in both. The final ‘Notice Imposing Penalty’, to be issued to the CRS, was awaited. ‘‘The Railway Ministry is contemplating who will issue the notice to the officer (Mahesh Chand) since he, being the CRS, is now under administrative control of the Ministry of Civil Aviation,’’ disclosed a Railway Ministry official.

That was the main reason for the delay — the question of who will issue the notice, the Railway Ministry or the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The cases against Mahesh Chand pertained to the period when he was posted as Chief Project Manager in South Eastern Railway at Bhubaneshwar in 2000. According to sources, one pertained to ballast tendering and the other to hiring transport for movement of railway material.

‘‘There were irregularities found in both the cases and after the inquiry, major penalty was recommended against him. However, that was subsequently toned down to minor penalty and the charges were also cleared by the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC),’’ sources added.

The vigilance cases, that have surfaced against Mahesh Chand, have put his appointment as CRS itself under a cloud. ‘‘An official with a Vigilance inquiry against him cannot be appointed the CRS. In this case, even penalty had been recommended against him,’’ an official explained. Mahesh Chand was appointed CRS in May 2002. And part of the clearance to become CRS includes a nod by the Vigilance Department of the Railway Board.

Minor penalty can entail holding of promotion for a particular period which can go up to as long as 20 years, and also withholding of increment for up to three years.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, when contacted, said that he was not sure of the ‘‘facts of the case’’ and that he would have to check. ‘‘But I am sure everything must have been done as per the procedure,’’ Kumar told The Indian Express.