BSNL staffer tries saving corrupt I-T officer, in CBI net

NEW DELHI: CBI's attempt to tap a corrupt senior income tax official's telephone was sabotaged in just three days when a BSNL employee approached a private contractor who works both with the telecom service provider and the I-T department in an attempt to save the officer.

Shocked by the turn of events, the CBI has initiated a probe under the Official Secret Act against Dhrubajyoti Ray, an IRS officer posted as joint commissioner in Silchar, Assam; Abhijit Das, BSNL deputy general manager; and

Siddhartha Deb Roy

, the private contractor.

Suspecting Dhrubajyoti Ray of indulging in corruption, CBI had last year sent 'top secret' letters to several telecom service providers for mounting surveillance on three mobile numbers and a landline number used by him. CBI wanted “actionable inputs“ on corrupt activities of Ray and his other colleagues in the I-T department.

One of the surveillance requests was mailed to the BSNL office, Assam circle, at Pan Bazar, Guwahati, by the CBI superintendent of police Kolkata on November 23, 2016.

The Assam circle office in-charge of BSNL forwarded CBI's request to alternate nodal officer Vivekananda Nath, deputy GM at Pan Bazar Telephone Exchange, Guwahati, the very next day, who in turn, on November 26, asked another deputy general manager, Abhijit Das, to put the landline number under surveillance, with a request, "Sir, please put the number 03842-260385 under interception on urgent basis as per attachment enclosed...request made by CBI."

Das, instead, made a call from his mobile to private contractor Sidhhartha Deb Roy asking him to come and meet in his office in the evening. When Roy reached his office, Das leaked to him the information that an instruction had come from director CBI for putting Dhru bajyoti Ray under sur veillance, asking him to warn the officer.

Roy, who takes up several contracts of BSNL in Silchar, was known to Das as well as the IRS officer since he was supplier of vehicles to the I-T office in Silchar.

As part of the conspiracy, Roy called the I-T officer the same day asking the latter to call from a different number as he had to pass on "confidential information".

Ray immediately called Roy from another mobile number and they spoke for 187 seconds.

Ray also made a call to the private contractor through his mobile phone, incidentally which was also under surveillance, and was therefore heard by CBI sleuths in Kolkata. This is when the entire plot unravelled. The agency conducted an enquiry for nine months before registering an FIR on Thursday under OSA, criminal conspiracy .