India to seek UK, UAE and South Korea’s assistance in case against Sanjay Bhandari

AN INDIAN investigating agency will send formal requests to the UK, the UAE and South Korea in relation to an alleged bribery case against lobbyist Sanjay Bhandari, accused of influencing a contract for a plant in Gujarat, officials said on Tuesday (4).

The contract was for a dual feed cracker unit (DFCU) at an ONGC Petro Additions Ltd (OPAL) plant in Dahej, Gujarat.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed three applications seeking the issuance of letters rogatory – a judicial request by a court for assistance of a foreign court – to the UAE, the UK and South Korea for information related to the case and accused individuals and companies, the officials said.

According to the CBI, the tender for the DFCU was floated on April 20, 2007, when two consortiums took part – the first by Germany’s Linde and Korea’s Samsung Engineering Co Ltd (SECL) and the second by USA’s Shaw Stone and Webster and India’s L&T. Both consortiums submitted their bids in 2008 and project technology consultant, Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd, UK, calculated the Net Present Value (NPV) of the Linde consortium to be ₹4,1.6 billion (£399 million), while it was ₹39.18bn (£375.6m) for Shaw Stone & Webster consortium.

The contract went to Linde and SECL consortium in spite of a review sought by Shaw Stone & Webster which was rejected. The CBI has alleged that Bhandari, as the director of UAEbased Santech International, entered into a “criminal conspiracy” with (SECL) by charging a consultancy fee of $4.9m (£3.9m) from it, in violation of the integrity clause in the contract agreement between the Korean major and OPAL.

An enquiry found several email exchanges between Bhandari and Hong Nam Koong, then senior manager at SECL, including about a consulting service agreement between Santech and SECL, according to the CBI charge. The alleged consultancy fee was received in overseas accounts of Santech International on June 13, 2009, nearly four months after the contract between OPAL and Linde consortium was executed, the agency said.

It has alleged the consultancy charges were understood to be bribes for public officials to swing the contract in favour of SECL, they said. The inquiry also found an unsigned agreement between SECL and the UK’s Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd, on July 19, 2007, appointing the former as a consultant, the FIR alleged.

They said this agreement, months after the tendering process had begun, was important as Foster Wheeler had prepared bid documents and calculated the NPV which became the basis for selecting Linde. The agency found Bhandari had allegedly transferred ₹20m (£191,748) to Farhan Mohammed Aslam, another director in Santech, in his firm Jaslam Trading in 2015.