KOLKATA: Two persons, who were arrested in West Bengal on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in an iron ore export scam in 2004-05, were remanded in police custody by a lower court on Thursday.
In an unprecedented move, the CID is probing into the alleged involvement of retired IAS officer R N Jamir and IAS officer on-compulsory-waiting Debaditya Chakraborty since June last after the Kolkata police failed to make any headway in the case. The Bankshal Court remanded the duo in police custody till February 4.
Jamir was the Director General and Chakraborty, Managing Director of West Bengal Essential Commodities Services Corporation (WBECSC), which was exporting iron ore to a Chinese company through Bharat Minmate Corporation Ltd and a Singapore-based shipping company, Sea Quest Shipping Pvt Ltd. Though the Chinese firm refused to accept the consignment citing poor quality, the ore was never brought back to India and is believed to have been surreptitiously sold. The discrepancies of the men-in-charge has caused the government a loss of `125 crore and sources indicate that the loss could go up to more than `300 crore. Two executives from Bharat Minmate Corporation Ltd, Pratap Bansal and Aman Biswal, were arrested in 2007.
While Jamir (1977 batch) had retired last year, just before the chargesheet was filed (in May), Chakraborty (1976 batch) was due for retirement in 2013 and had been on compulsory-waiting since his name cropped up in the scam in 2006.