new life: Gautam Goswami

Patna, Aug. 29: Once among the most sought-after men in the state, jailed IAS officer Gautam Goswami now leads a lonely life.

Deserted by friends and relatives, the IAS officer embroiled in a high-profile scam has returned to his prime calling as he waits at Beur Jail for the trial to begin.

Among fellow inmates, Goswami is once again the doctor who specialised in medicine from Benares Hindu University (BHU) before cracking the civil services. As he treats a variety of physiological disorders, the BHU topper seems all set to put behind him the years of bureaucratic service and the disrepute it brought him.

Goswami, a former district magistrate of Patna, has been in Beur from June 30 last year for alleged involvement in the Rs 17.8-crore flood relief scam.

An IAS officer of the 1991 batch, he has been charged with authorising the payment of Rs 17.8 crore to the non-existent Baba Satya Sai Industries for distributing “relief material” among flood victims in 2004. The turmoil over the past year has taken its toll on the former bureaucrat who was hailed as a hero by TIME magazine, ironically, for his flood relief work.

The fish-loving Bengali from Rohtas has turned vegetarian. He is also reportedly reading spiritual books — especially on Hinduism and Buddhism. He has lost 4-5 kg and wears a moustache.

Housed in the VIP enclave of the jail, Goswami shares the premises with high-profile inmates like former head of the public service commission Razia Tabassum and the kingpin of the paper leak, Ranjit Don. He is not very sociable though, and keeps mostly to himself.

The fall from grace becomes strikingly noticeable during the visiting hours between 8.30 and 11 am. The number of visitors has reduced gradually and Goswami nowadays has somebody coming to see him hardly once or twice a month.

For his family members, the past year has been an ordeal which they fervently wish would come to an end. Goswami’s father Utpalendu, a doctor in Rohtas, regrets that there are few who are willing to stand by his son. “All close friends and relatives of my son have distanced themselves from us,” he said.

The elderly man cannot visit his son as often as he would like due to ill-health. He, however, minces no words about what he wants. “We want the trial to begin. It is too painful to see my family going through these adversities at the fag end of my life,” he said.

According to his lawyer Tuhin Shankar, though a fresh bail plea has been made in the high court before judge Chandamauli Prasad, they were not pushing it too hard as the case is nearing the trial stage. The court has asked vigilance department officials to furnish all relevant details about the flood relief scam, he said.

The six main accused in the case — Goswami, Santosh Kumar Jha, former additional district magistrate Vasudev Das, former deputy collector Devendra Kumar, former head clerk Parmeshwar Prasad Swarnakar and computer operator Amitabh Arun — are still lodged in jail. The court has, however, granted bail to those who were indirectly associated with the fraud and those who had benefited from the tainted money. Among them are former director of the Small Scale Industries Corporation Mukteshwar Prasad, Amlendu Choudhary, Shailendra Kumar, Sanjay Jha, Sajjad Ali and MP Sadhu Yadav.

The investigating officer and superintendent of the vigilance department, A.K. Singh, said the final chargesheet — naming 13 persons — has already been placed in the court of the special judge (vigilance) in April this year. Singh said the main FIR (8/2005) had named 22 persons, but nine of them were found to be fictitious.