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HK Mittal, the Executive Chairman of Mercator Ltd, and four former top officials of State-run Dredging Corporation of India (P Sridharan, MVR Murthy, SS Tripathi and PV Ramana Murthy) have been charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case relating to the now-stalled Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project, as well as another dredging contract at Paradip Port.
DCI had hired three dredgers from Mercator for the Sethusamudram project but the contract was terminated before completion of the work. Accused P Sridharan, who was then DCI’s Director (Operations and Technical), issued a ‘Work Done’ certificate to Mercator, which the company used to take up dredging work at Paradip Port.
The Sethusamudram project was Mercator’s first dredging assignment, and the work certificate was crucial for the Mumbai-listed firm’s participation in future tenders.
The dredging work at Paradip Port was originally awarded to DCI, which issued a tender to sub-contract a part of the work, in which Mercator emerged the lowest bidder.
The second-lowest bidder, A Dutch firm, lodged a complaint stating that Mercator was wrongly issued the certificate by DCI, which enabled it to qualify for the Paradip job. It reasoned that since Mercator’s Sethusamudram contract was terminated before completion of work, the certificate issued by the DCI, on the basis of which Mercator qualified for the Paradip contract, should have been invalid.
MVR Murthy, then General Manager (Operations) at DCI, who was on the State-run dredger’s evaluation committee for the Sethusamudram project, had observed that Mercator’s work was not satisfactory. However, Murthy, who was also on the tender committee for DCI’s Paradip sub-contracting tender, approved Mercator’s qualification on the basis of the certificate issued by Sridharan.
After the tender was awarded, Murthy left DCI and joined Mercator.
The other accused in the case include DCI’s then CMD SS Tripathi and Director-Finance PV Ramana Murthy.
A CBI official confirmed the charge-sheets filed against the five persons. It alleges that the four DCI officials and Mittal colluded to get the Paradip sub-contracting work for Mercator.
Mercator could not be immediately reached. DCI declined to comment.
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