Debaditya Chakraborty (top) and RM Jamir at Bankshall Court on Thursday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, Feb. 2: A serving IAS officer and a retired one arrested over an iron ore scam yesterday were today booked by the CID for another similar fraud.

When R.M. Jamir and Debaditya Chakraborty were at the helm of the West Bengal Essential Commodities Supply Corporation Limited (WBECSCL) between 2004 and 2005, the government agency had bagged a deal to supply cement clinkers to a company in Bangladesh but the consignment was allegedly sold in the black market, causing a loss of Rs 30 crore to the state.

Around the same time, the government had lost Rs 200 crore because of a similar fraud in a deal to send iron ore fines to China for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, sources in the CID said.

Speaking about the Bangladesh deal, a CID officer said: “The WBECSCL imported the clinkers (a lumpy chemical produced by burning limestone and coal and used as a raw material to manufacture cement) from an Indonesian company before exporting them to Bangladesh.

“The Bangladesh company had rejected the majority of the shipments citing quality issues. The shipments, however, never came back to India. They were sold in the black market and the government suffered a loss of Rs 30 crore.”

The CID investigations have also revealed that the amount of clinkers imported from Indonesia was less than that mentioned in the WBECSCL’s official documents.

“We have evidence that at least one of the shipments, carried in a Singapore vessel named MV Mirna, did not reach India. The official documents available with the WBECSCL, however, mention that the vessel had come to India,” the officer said.

It was also found that WBECSCL had hired Singapore-based shipping company Seaquest Private Ltd for the shipments to China and Bangladesh even though it had been declared bankrupt. “The WBECSCL had paid Rs 58 crore for the shipments. Seaquest, in turn, had outsourced the job to another company but never cleared the dues,” the CID officer said.

A fresh case was started when the company hired by Seaquest lodged a complaint against WBECSCL to claim the dues. According to the complaint, WBECSCL should have ensured that Seaquest cleared its dues. The government lost the Rs 58 crore because of this. The CID said the WBECSCL had not floated tenders before awarding the deal to Seaquest.

“The government had taken loans from nine banks for the deals the WBECSCL struck with the companies in China and Bangladesh. The total amount lost along with bank interest can be pegged at Rs 358 crore,” the officer said.

Jamir, who retired in 2008, and Chakraborty, who is on compulsory waiting, were produced in Bankshall Court today and remanded in three days’ police custody.