Our MD swept FMs office in personal capacity: BCL

My wife is a designer of interiors by profession and I am proud of her independent identity in this sphere. She pursues this profession through a proprietorship Kolkata-based company that possesses the requisite licenses. She accepted a design consultancy assignment from M/s Concepts Engineers & Contractors (CEC) of Okhla Vihar,New Delhi in July 2010,at a consolidated remuneration of Rs 37,000 per month.

Both facts were duly reported to the Ministry of Finance and taken on official record under extant Service Conduct Rules. Her assignment was for the pool area design and supervision component pursuant to a Work Order from M/s BCL Secure Premises upon M/s CEC,requiring the latter to undertake civil,electrical and furbishment works for the formers office at 222,Mall Road,Flower Valley,Vasant Kunj,New Delhi.

Ms Chandra Mitra remained unaware till yesterday,of the business activity of this firm and she completed her assignment in March 2011.

I have learnt that Mr S K Gupta,Managing Director,BCL Secure Premises Pvt Ltd was entrusted the reported task in his individual capacity by a senior official of the Ministry of Finance and that this Company was not involved in the reported engagement. I played no role in this process in the Ministry of Finance and was indeed,unaware of even the necessity therefor.

Sunil Mitra

Ritu Sarin replies:

Nowhere in the report is there any suggestion that Sunil Mitra played a role in his wifes assignment for BCL. The report mentioned how the former chiefs of RAW and IB help BCL and that Chandra Mitra worked on the companys office interiors.

On July 7,Brij Sahay,Head,HR,of BCL Secure Premises wrote to The Indian Express:

We are surprised by your correspondents remark that BCL is a snoop firm. BCL is a Security Services Company involved in guarding,CCTV monitoring and high-end products such as escape rescue and not at all involved in any sort of debugging as insinuated by your correspondent.

The debugging was carried out by (S K Gupta,Managing Director of the Company) in his individual capacity at the request of the Finance Ministry and BCL has neither any contract nor information of the same.

We would like to state that BCL is not a Kanoria Group Company and that Kanorias hold no shares in the same.

Brij Sahay,Head-HR

Ritu Sarin replies:

The word snoop was used because investigation and surveillance are among the services offered by BCL Secure Premises. Its website,in fact,offers experts who handle cases deftly…maintain confidentiality of our clients and conduct special assignments to acquire inputs for the corporates which will assist in decision making by obtaining credible market intelligence.

Guptas claim that his debugging assignment for the Ministry of Finance was done in his personal capacity was also accurately reported in the story. This reporter spoke to Sujit Kanoria who discussed his own and his familys involvement with BCL and said that besides the Kanoria family,Gupta,too,had a minor stake in the company.