Mr. Arvind Jadhav, former CMD of Air India. File.
| Photo Credit: PAUL NORONHA
The CBI has filed a charge sheet towards the then CMD of Air India, SAP India and IBM in reference to alleged irregularities in procurement of software price ₹225 crore by the nationwide provider in 2011, officers mentioned on Sunday.
The CBI has registered the case on the advice of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) which discovered prima facie procedural irregularities in the procurement of the software, in keeping with individuals in the investigation company in know of the event.
After practically six years of probe, the CBI has filed a charge sheet towards former CMD Air India Arvind Jadhav, IBM India Private Limited, SAP India Private Limited and 6 others beneath the IPC part 120-B (legal conspiracy) and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, they mentioned.
The CVC, in the notice to the CBI, mentioned that preliminary probe by Air India’s chief vigilance officer reveals that the nationwide provider had chosen the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system from SAP AG with out following correct tendering process.
It was additionally alleged that there was no approval from the Civil Aviation Ministry regardless that Air India had claimed that it had made a presentation earlier than the Group of Secretaries on July 9, 2009, and earlier than the Group of Ministers in 2010.
The fee had mentioned that Air India had chosen the software from the biggest ERP supplier of the world with out justifying the necessity for a similar since already the same system of Oracle was in operation.
It was acknowledged that the Oracle system had some issues however no efforts had been apparently made to both set them proper or improve the prevailing system.
Also, open tender system was not adopted for procurement of recent ERP software, the CVC mentioned in the notice.
“Instead, the contract was awarded to SAP and IBM on nomination basis.”
