Witness turns hostile

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 12. In an interesting turn, a prosecution witness in the `coal import deal' case today told the Special Court-II that the entire process of import for the TNEB was done ``strictly in accordance with the procedure''.

Mr. P. Jayaraman, a former Chief Engineer, TNEB, said during chief examination before the Judge, Mr. S.S.P. Darwesh, that he was the Director of Coal on the board from June 1992 to September 1995. He was not aware of any objections made by the then PWD Secretary (Mr. V. Sundaram), before issuing the order for importing two million tonnes of coal. On the whole, the Indonesian coal and Australian coal were of equally good quality.

Mr. Jayaraman said that when the case was registered, he gave the same facts before the investigating officer on October 13, 1996. Subsequently, he did not give any statement to the police. He denied he visited the CB-CID DSP's office on December 25 and 26 and gave statement.

Following a request, the court allowed the prosecution to treat the witness as hostile. Cross-examined by the Special Public Prosecutor, the witness denied he gave a statement voluntarily to the police when he was examined. He also denied that he had stated that immediately after placing the tender, Mr. Sundaram sent a note to the TNEB Chairman on February 19, 1993 clearly advising the board how the tender would be designed to get the maximum benefit to the board. There was a continuous shortage of coal and Coal India did not fulfil the board's requirement. So it had to be imported. Most of the supply by Coal India was of very low calorific value and its ash content was high.

Another witness, Mr. N.P. Vinayagasundaram, also a retired TNEB engineer, said no favouritism was shown in the coal import. He denied having told the police during questioning that had the technical aspects been strictly followed, some of the Indonesian tenderers would have been disqualified. As the statement went contrary to what the witness had said during police questioning, he was treated as hostile and cross-examined by prosecution.

During cross-examination by the defence counsel, Mr. Vinayagasundaram said the entire tender process gone through was according to rules and guidelines. The prices of various components in the coal were matched with the lowest evaluated tender and as per ranking contracts were awarded.

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