Hyderabad: The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax department have identified 26 lockers used by top officials of Dalmia Cements to stash the unaccounted cash that was allegedly paid as bribes to Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s companies. The statements made by the accused officials of Dalmia Cements to the CBI revealed that approximately around Rs 100 crore from these lockers in the names of top employees of Dalmia was used for various pay-offs.
Based on the leads it has got in the case, the CBI has launched a hunt for two hawala cash delivery boys identified as Naseem and Babu, who used to allegedly collect money from Dalmia Cements to transfer to the concerned parties.
The statements of top officials of Dalmia Cements recorded by the CBI revealed that one Barunjee, the senior adviser of Dalmia Enterprises, played a key role in the transactions. Barunjee died in April 2011. All the accused, including Dalmia Cements MD Puneet Dalmia, have put the onus on Barunjee, stating that their role is minimal and Barunjee used to run the show regarding the unaccounted cash.
The videographed statement of Sanjay S. Mittra (accused number 8), senior executive director of Dalmia Cements (Bharat) Limited, revealed that around 25 to 26 lockers were maintained in the name of employees of the company, to keep the cash to meet the requirements of the company’s ‘unofficial needs’, in 2008-09, and were operated till recently.
“One Naseem used to deliver unaccounted cash as per his agreement with Neel Kamal Beri, a senior manager of Dalmia, for the purpose of releasing the cash to the right person... I also know that one Babu was also one of the middlemen in these transactions,” Sanjay Mittra said in his statement.
Neel Kamal Beri, a senior manager of Dalmia Cements, told the CBI that the lockers were opened in the Punjab National Bank and Vijaya Bank. The lockers were in the joint names of himself and manager Joy Deep Basu who is also named as an accused. These lockers were operated either by Neel Kamal Beri or Joy Deep Basu.
The transactions ranged from a minimum of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh to a maximum of Rs 60 lakh. The income-tax department has seized Rs 14.48 crore from bank lockers maintained by the duo.
However, Puneet Dalmia says “JR“ means joint revenue account for family adjustment. “JR could be a code or pseudonym for our joint revenue account for some family adjustment.  We had very good relations with YSR. After YSR's death, there was a request from financial adviser Vijay Sai Reddy on behalf of Jagan Mohan Reddy for some financial support. Based on our relations with his father, I had discussed with Barunjee and decided to help him to the extent of Rs 10 crore-Rs 20 crore for the funds. Barunjee had the authority to take the decision. I am not aware how much was paid and how it was recorded. It is possible that some of the money was paid for party funds,"  Puneet Dalmia said.
 
He said that Barunjee was “an old confidant and adviser of the family who used to handle our personal matters including decision making related to use of cash". Puneet Dalmia reportedly told the CBI: “I have never authorised maintenance of this account. However, with the family cash we used to give advance loans to various parties and we also used to make investment in various asset classes to generate capital gains... I cannot comment on the entries and code names as I am not the author of the record. But some payment is possible to have been made to Jagan Mohan Reddy ."
Modus operandi of hawala transactions CBI found the payments from Dalmia to the companies owned by Jagan originated from Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. According to Sanjay Mittra, “Till April 2011, the cash transactions were being monitored by Barunjee. The instructions were conveyed to me by a pink slip. The slip contained the name and contact details of the person delivering/receiving cash. After receiving the slip I used to pass it to Neel Kamal Beri for his action. Later, it was returned to Barunjee.“
Beri said, “I used to get advance information from Barunjee about the cash. The delivery persons used to make a call through reception on landline and state `Apke pas koi message hai?' and the reply could be `Hai'. The delivery person asked `What is the token number' and Beri used to tell him the token number.After this confirmation the time for delivery of cash is fixed and Neel Kamal used to collect the cash.