Nagrjan arrested, Mauvin's re-arrest sought

Sandesh Prabhudesai
24 May 2001  

T Nagrajan, former chief electrical engineer of Goa, was arrested in a power rebate scam today.

The state police are also planning to re-arrest former power minister Mauvin Godinho in another case of similar nature. After arresting the Congress legislator on 16 May in connection with the power rebate scam, he was released on 22 May.

Nagrajan, the second person arrested in the power rebate scam, is being charged for conspiring with Godinho in a corruption case, by issuing illegal notification in order to grant 25 per cent power rebate to over 210 industrial units in 1996.

Besides this, the state police are also investigating into yet another case of Balaji Rolling Mills, which was granted power subsidy of around Rs 19 lakh, by forging the documents when Godinho and Nagrajan were in power.

To grant the subsidy, it was made mandatory that any industrial unit applies for power connection prior to 1995. By conspiring with S R Shinkre, yet another chief electrical engineer in 1995, Godinho and Nagrajan got the approval signed from him in 1996 in this regard, without making any inward entries for such an application.

The police have thus also interrogated Shinkre. Police sources confirmed that he is also likely to follow suit of Godinho and Nagrajan.

Though Godinho was finally released on bail by the high court on Tuesday, he has now applied for anticipatory bail as the police want to arrest him in connection with the case of Balaji Rolling Mills.

Meanwhile, Somnath Zuwarkar, another ex-minister and Congress legislator, resigned as the chairman of the Goa State Co-operative Bank yesterday, while he is still in the police lock-up for his alleged involvement in a bank scam.

The resignation letter was sent to the bank headquarters before the board of directors could meet to formally expel him from the position. Rajkumar Desai, one of the three complainants to the police, was elected the new chairman.

Desai, the director of the bank, is also an activist of the ruling BJP party in Goa.

While welcoming the decision, chief minister Manohar Parrikar said the government would now drop its move to form another apex bank in the state. The proposal was mooted as the GSBC was granted the status of a multi-state bank.

"We will now sign an agreement with the bank which would allow the state-level Registrar of Co-operative Societies to control it", said Parrikar. Being a multi-state bank, it is controlled by the central registrar.

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