New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) and eight officials of the Ministry of Steel over alleged corruption and bribery to the tune of Rs 315 crore. Megha Engineering was reportedly one of the top donors in the now-scrapped electoral bonds, having donated at least Rs 966 crore.

The corruption case is related to the execution of the NMDC Iron and Steel Plant (NISP) project. The ministry officers booked were from the NMDC Iron and Steel Plant itself, with eight being from NISP and NMDC and two officials from MECON. They allegedly received a bribe of around Rs 78 lakh in clearing bills of Rs 174 crore of Megha Engineering for work related to the Jagdalpur integrated steel plant.

According to information released by the Election Commission of India on March 21 this year, Megha Engineering is one of the main donors to the electoral bonds. The company made contributions to the Indian National Congress (INC) worth Rs 17 crore, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worth Rs 586 crore, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) worth Rs 195 core, the DMK worth Rs 85 crore, the YSRCP worth Rs 37 crore, the TDP worth Rs 25 crore, and the JD-S, JD-U and the Jana Sena Party worth Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore.

P Pitchi Reddy and PV Krishna Reddy, promoters of MEIL have been listed as the second-largest donors of electoral bonds at Rs 1,232 crore. The promoters’ wealth increased by over 50 percent and the Reddy duo is now worth around $6 billion each, say reports.

According to the first information report (FIR) filed by CBI, the investigating agency registered a preliminary enquiry on August 10, 2023 about the alleged bribery in the Rs 315-crore project at the integrated steel plant in Jagdalpur.

A recommendation was made on March 18 to register a regular case into the alleged bribery, which was filed on March 31.

The eight officials of NISP and NMDC named by the CBI were:

Retired Executive Director Prashant Dash, Director (Production) DK Mohanty, DGM PK Bhuyan, DM Naresh Babu, Senior Manager Subro Banerjee, Retired CGM (Finance) L Krishna Mohan, GM (Finance) K Rajshekhar, and Manager (Finance) Somnath Ghosh.

The two MECON officials named by the CBI were:

AGM (Contracts) Sanjeev Sahay and DGM (Contracts) K Illavarsu, who reportedly received a bribe of Rs 5.01 lakh against the payment of Rs 174.41 crore by NMDC Ltd to MEIL, against 73 invoices from Subhash Chandra Sangras, General Manager, MEIL, Megha Engineering and some unknown others.

With inputs from PTI.