Goswami surrenders, suspended, sent to jail

RJD leaders distance themselves from the 'Asian Hero'

Former Patna District Magistrate and an accused in the multi-crore rupee Bihar flood relief scam Gautam Goswami today surrendered in a court after evading arrest for a month. He was remanded to seven days judicial custody, a day after his bail plea was rejected by the Patna High Court.

Further tightening the noose around Goswami, the state government ordered a probe into alleged defalcation of funds worth Rs 1.52 crore meant for urban development schemes during his tenure.

The Bihar government today also decided to suspend Goswami. "The state government has decided to suspend Goswami and the concerned file is being processed for being forwarded to Governor Buta Singh for approval," Chief Secretary GS Kang said after a meeting with the governor.

The governor is likely to approve the file this evening and we will then send it to the Centre for confirmation," he said.

Goswami who shot to fame last year for daring to stop a rally being addressed by LK Advani, who was the home minister then, in Patna, and awarded the title "Asian Hero" by Time magazine for the flood relief work, was accompanied to the special court by his lawyer Tuhin Shankar.

Even as he sat quietly on a bench inside the court room as Shankar completed the formalities regarding the surrender, senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders in Delhi were busy distancing themselves from him.

A senior RJD minister in Delhi said Goswami's reputation "had never been good" and that he (the minister) had personally warned the Rabri Devi government of appointing him Patna district magistrate.

"I had told Goswami that you have the caliber to be the chief secretary of Bihar, why are you politicising your post," he said. In fact, Goswami has been forsaken not just by the RJD whose favourite bureaucrat he was, but also by his new employers, the Sahara Group.

At the last press conference in Delhi, Goswami had said he was innocent and that a vigilance enquiry would clear the matter. "The chief secretary downwards everyone was involved in relief work," he had said, and yet, only Goswami's head has been put on the block.

Co-accused Santosh Jha, considered close to Sadhu Yadav, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's brother-in-law, has already surrendered.

These obvious connections of both Goswami and Jha to the RJD, made it important that the RJD quickly distance itself from Goswami. A humiliating Rs 1 lakh reward was placed on Goswami's head after he failed to surrender.

Designated Vigilance Judge Jitendra Mohan Prasad remanded him to judicial custody till July 6. He was then taken to the high-security Beur Jail in the suburbs of Patna.

Meanwhile, the Bihar chief secretary said the vigilance bureau would probe a case relating to defalcation of the funds highlighted in the inquiry report submitted by the then Patna District Magistrate Sudhir Kumar who had earlier unearthed the multi-crore rupee flood relief scam involving Goswami.

The inquiry revealed that Rs 76 lakh meant for the Swaran Jayanti Swarozgar Yojana and an equal amount meant for the national slum development project (housing) was misappropriated between June and September 2004 when Goswami was the district magistrate.