Governor R.S. Gavai called an all-party meet at Raj Bhavan to discuss flood issues. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Aug. 1: Though district officials are calling their caution and care “routine affair”, grapevines are cruelly suggesting that the bureaucrats’ extra caution in these flooded times is an effect of the Gautam Goswami affair.

While vigilance court readies itself to start framing charges against 13 accused in Rs 17.80cr flood-relief scam, in which former Patna district magistrate Goswami is also an accused, administrators across flood-ravaged areas are treading cautiously especially in relief operations.

The district magistrates and ex-officio in-charge of flood relief operations have been scrutinising all papers before sanctioning eatables and polythene sheets. The disaster management department has set apart Rs 500cr budget for exigencies. Relief materials are rooted through district magistrates.

However, while accepting the fact that charges against former Patna district magistrate Goswami embarrassed the state bureaucracy, officials are not willing to give legitimacy to what is being called the “Goswami effect”.

A bureaucrat said: “It is an irony that the same Goswami, who was among the Time Asian heroes for conducting successful relief operations during 2004 floods, ended up being an accused in the scam surfacing in 2005.”

Goswami was released on November 15, 2006 after 16 months of incarceration in Beur jail. The 1991 batch IAS officer had been in jail since June 30, 2005. Time Asian hero found himself on the wrong side of the law for allegedly authorising payment worth Rs 17.80 crore to a bogus firm — Baba Satya Sai Industries — for distributing “relief material” among flood victims in 2004.

Before he could get bail, he shared the VIP ward with former Bihar Public Service commission financial irregularity-accused Razia Tabassum and the kingpin of bank paper leak, Ranjit Don, and spent his time reading books on spiritualism, Budhism and Hinduism.

Now, after his release, Goswami divides his time between Patna and Dehri-on-Son (Rohtas) where his parents stay, said a source. Updating The Telegraph on the case, Goswami’s lawyer Tuhin Shankar said: “Though the charge-sheet against all 13 accused was filed sometime back, trial is yet to begin.” The framing (of charges) is a procedure that follows chargesheet to discuss and debate tenability and merit of charges leveled by the prosecution. Shankar said all accused except one or two have been granted bail because of long period of imprisonment.

Earlier, the investigating officer of the case and vigilance superintendent of police A K Singh said though the main FIR (8/2005) named 22 persons, nine names were found fictitious. All the accused face charges under 10 IPC sections for fraud and criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Corruption (Prevention) Act for violating code of conduct and moral turpitude.

Those who have been out on bail, besides Goswami, are kingpin Santosh Kumar Jha, former Bihar small-scale industries corporation director Mukteshwar Prasad, Amlendu Choudhary, Shailendra Kumar, Sanjay Jha and Sajjad Ali. Sadhu Yadav, one of the alleged beneficiaries of tainted money, also got bail.

Other accused are former additional district magistrate Vasudev Das, former deputy collector Devendra Kumar, former head clerk Parmeshwar Prasad Swarnakar and then computer operator Amitabh Arun.