Former vice-president of Louis Berger arrested in bribery case

Panaji: Former Louis Berger vice-president Satyakam Mohanty was arrested on Monday in connection with the pay-off scandal involving the New Jersey-based consultancy firm that is charged with bribing Indian officials to win two major water developmental projects in Goa and Guwahati, police said.

Mohanty who was questioned by Goa crime branch on Sunday was placed under arrest on Monday, said superintendent of police (CB) Kartik Kashyap.

This is the second arrest in the case wherein officials of the US company confessed in a court in that country that they had paid bribes to an Indian minister to win consultancy contract for water augmentation and sewerage pipeline project under Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Goa in 2010 (when Congress was in power).

According to sources, Mohanty's interrogation provided major leads to the investigators in the case.

The crime branch has already arrested Anand Wachasunder, a senior official who headed the controversial JICA water project in Goa.

Also, former Goa chief minister Digamber Kamat (who was heading the state between 2007-2012 when the US firm allegedly paid bribes) and former public works department minister Churchill Alemao were grilled by the crime branch in connection with the case last week.

The alleged bribery scam of $976,630 for the project included kickbacks to a minister, the details of which have not been disclosed by the US department of justice.

All the tenders for the JICA project, of which Louis Berger was the consultant were issued as per Central Public Works Department prescribed norms.