GE Docs–GE tampered with Kazakhstan Railways customer certificate filed in Indian Loco tender

Response on Forgery dated 11 April 2011

The letter below was sent by me to Mr. Alexander Dimitrief on April 11. 2011. (For Mr. Alex Dimitrief’s letter click here. )

Dear Mr. Dimitrief,

In response to your letter dated 3 February 2011 and your email dated 9 April 2011, I regret that I am unable to consider this matter closed. My response on your alleged investigation and purported findings on the forgery issue is as follows:

Forgery

GE employees committed a forgery of the Kazakhstan certificate and submitted it to the Government of India as part of GE’s Request for Qualification for the Diesel Locomotive tender at Marhowra. These employees including Deepak Adlakha, GE India’s General Counsel, attempted to implicate me in this offence, and to scapegoat and victimise me. I was bullied, lied to, and tricked. There was an attempt to blackmail me. Deepak Adlakha conspired to ensure that I did not leave GE immediately after 11 July 2010. He conspired to prevent me from quitting while he set the stage for a termination of my contract and created conditions that compelled me to resign. Mr. Adlakha threatened me. He bullied me when I withdrew my resignation in order to raise concerns. He tried to dissuade me from raising my concerns. At a later date, he suggested that he could find me an alternate position if I was ready to wait for a couple of months before raising my concerns. I refused. Once I started to raise my concerns, Mr. Adlakha avoided me. I was asked to move to the Gurgaon office in an attempt to isolate me. Finally when I started to relate Mr. Adlakha’s role, I was fired without being given a reason. He then got another GE lawyer to try and influence me into not raising further concerns.

In your letter, you claim that documentary evidence disproves my complaint about the forgery. This is incorrect. The documentary evidence you discuss is irrelevant.[1] The evidence that I have shared in writing clearly shows the following:

1. The document I saw in the compilation on the evening of 9 July 2010 contained a black and white copy of the Kazakhstan certificate. This was the final set that was supposed to have been sent for binding.

2. The bound set that I saw on 10 July 2010 contained an entirely different document (Kazakhstan certificate) that was in colour and looked like an original leading me to ask: are you guys playing games with me?

3. Ashish Malhotra lied to me and said that the coloured document was there in the set I looked at on 9 July 2010. This is incorrect. The document I saw on 9 July 2010 was a black and white document that on the face of it looked like a copy. The document I saw on 10 July was a colour document that looked like an original.

4. The document I was shown by Mr. Eglash on 1 December 2010 [2] (I call it Document X) was most certainly not the document I saw on 10 July. I made this very clear. Mr. Eglash asked me if I was sure. I answered: would I lie about something like this. Further, Document X did not in any way resemble an original. Let me also state that I was not shown an electronic record of Document X despite my request.

5. I asked Mr. Eglash during the same meeting right after being shown Document X that he needed to look at what the Government had on its file. He smiled at me and said “why should I?”

6. In your letter you misquote me to suggest that I was unable to definitely state whether or not I saw Document X in the bound set on 10 July. Subsequent to my meeting with Mr. Eglash I stated in writing as follows:

When I met Jeff Eglash on 1 December, I was shown a printout of an email trail and an attached document that looked like the Kazakhstan certificate. I was told this was a color printout. The document had black lettering and a blue signature. I do not remember having earlier seen the printout I was shown. I informed Jeff that this was not what was filed with the RFQ. The document that was filed was a more colorful document with a red signature. The signature was in bold similar to the result of a sketch pen having been used. This is what I seem to remember, i.e., the signature was in red. But given the time lapse and other circumstances, I would rather not state this today with 100% certainty. Maybe some other writing on the certificate was in red. What I do remember is my reaction to what I saw on 10 July 2010. That looked like an original. The document Jeff showed me did not look like an original. What was submitted is available with the Railways. The persons who claimed and told me that was a color printout need to show a scanned copy received by email on or before 9 July that is identical to what was submitted and is on the record with the Government. None of these documents or emails is in my possession. So GE should not be relying upon me to establish the facts here. GE should be able to verify this independently.

7. Your letter misquotes this and claims that I stated:

“given the time lapse and other circumstances, [you] would rather not state [the certificate shown to you during the interview was not the certificate you saw previously] with 100% certainty”.

The words in square brackets are GE’s.

8. As is clear from the full quote of my written communication (at point 6 above) I stated “… what I seem to remember, i.e., the signature was in red. But given the time lapse and other circumstances, I would rather not state this today with 100% certainty. Maybe some other writing on the certificate was in red.” I go on to say that “What I do remember is my reaction to what I saw on 10 July 2010. That looked like an original. The document Jeff showed me did not look like an original.”

9. My statement that I could not remember with 100% certainty if the signature was in red, has been distorted in your letter to mean something entirely different. As is clear from the full quotation extracted above at point 6, I clearly and unambiguously stated that Document X was not the document I saw in the bound compilation on 10 July 2010. I maintain this even today.

10. In my communication, I also pointed GE towards the documentary evidence that it needed to examine by repeating what I had verbally told Mr. Eglash on 1 December. I stated “What was submitted is available with the Railways. The persons who claimed and told me that was a color printout need to show a scanned copy received by email on or before 9 July that is identical to what was submitted and is on the record with the Government. None of these documents or emails is in my possession. So GE should not be relying upon me to establish the facts here. GE should be able to verify this independently.

11. Any reasonable person wanting to investigate this forgery thoroughly would look to the relevant documentary evidence available with the Government. I wonder why GE does not want that evidence examined?

12. I have described the events of 10 and 11 July 2010 in great detail in writing. Further, I have also detailed the conspiracy to cover up this forgery that was put into effect afterwards.

13. Your statement that I have candidly retreated from my stance is incorrect and false. You intentionally misquote me to distort what I stated during the meeting on 1 December 2010 and in my subsequent communication.

14. Given the above, I continue to believe that the Kazakhstan certificate was forged. I base my claim on the evidence of what I saw with my own eyes. Further, the additional material I have shared describing the conspiracy supports my claim on the forgery.

15. You have offered no convincing argument/ evidence for your statement that “GETI submitted the scanned copy of the Kazakh certificate received on July 7 to Indian Railways without alteration”. Instead you have attempted to misquote me and distort my evidence. Further GE has declined to examine the documentary evidence available with the Government.

16. You also state in your letter that you are “troubled by the misleading tone of my communications with Indian Railways.” You add:

“When GETI submitted its RFQ, GETI explicitly stated to Indian Railways that “all documents accompanying (our) Application are true copies of their respective originals”. We have reviewed numerous e-mails between you and the GETI business team that plainly demonstrate that you were aware at the time that GETI was submitting a scanned copy of the certificate in question and made no claim then of “forgery”. …”

With respect, these statements appear to me to be totally irrelevant and an attempt to obfuscate the issue as part of a cover-up.

I hope this response sheds a clearer and more authentic light on the forgery issue.

Thank you,

Seema Sapra

[1] You state: “We have compared the printout of the certificate from the July 7 e-mail with GETI’s copy of the Request for Qualification (“RFQ”) submitted to Indian Railways and they are identical”. With respect, this does not establish that the certificate was not forged. This is not contrary to what I have stated: the document I saw on 9 July was different from what I saw on 10 July. It would therefore appear that the document was substituted sometime after I saw it on 9 July and before it was sent for binding. I presume that the copy of the RFQ that you refer to was made before 9 July and was of the set that I saw on 9 July and not of the set that I saw on 10 July.

[2] You state that I requested Mr. Eglash during the meeting to show me the email from which the customer certificate was printed. This is incorrect. Mr. Eglash showed me Document X on his own accord. I understand he set up the meeting for this purpose.

—————————————————————————————

I sent these three notes to Mr. Jeffrey Eglash, Mr. Brackett Denniston and Mr. Alexander Dimitrief (all General Electric attorneys) on January 16 and 18, 2011. These were sent during GE’s internal investigation.

Note 1

Customer certificates for D Loco RFQ including the Kazakhstan customer certificate

I have added some further information and clarifications to this document on 12 December 2010 and this is shown in red font.

I have added some additional information and clarifications to this document on 7 December 2010 and this is shown in blue font.

Ramesh made certain work schedules in end of May/ beginning of June that showed him as responsible for technical capacity documents including customer certificates. Praveena was listed as responsible for handling and storage of documentation.

As I later discovered these certificates were obtained around December 2009 and January 2010.

Ashish joined as ITO leader for India in end of May and also became jointly responsible with Ramesh for the D Loco RFQ prep.

Work on the RFQ prep started after 15 June and was being coordinated from India by Ramesh and Ashish.[1] I started to answer queries and offer support whenever and wherever requested.

Sometime after 15 June, Gaurav Negi sent Ramesh and me an email asking us to make sure that the customer certificates were OK and did not have the issues which apparently they had in E Loco (where consequently an auditors’ certificate based upon the customer certificates was used).

I forwarded Gaurav’s email to Ashish and asked him to look into this and reply to Gaurav. Ashish came and told me he had spoken to Ramesh and there was no problem with the customer certificates that Ramesh had. He told me he had informed Gaurav about this.

I had told Ashish that he should scan and send on email all RFQ documents for review and I would provide my comments on email so that there was a full record. I had specifically told Ashish in the beginning of June that he should check everything himself and have everything reviewed and not to rely upon Ramesh who had made many mistakes during the E Loco RFQ. I told Ashish I found Ramesh very incompetent.

Ashish/ Steve started to send me selective documents/ queries for advice from the third week of June onwards. I ensured that I obtained Jamie Winget’s views on everything as well. All queries were answered on email.

The Railways issued the revised RFQ on 24 June. Work began to speed up after that. Ashish started to compile the application and sent me a first set of documents to review in this week.[2]

The remaining documents including the scanned customer certificates along with the technical capacity Annexures (II and IV) were sent to me on email I believe on or after 29 June. This was the first time I was sent the customer certificates and these two annexures. He also prepared a spiral bound copy of the complete set and gave me one set in the week beginning 28 June.[3]

After receiving Annexures II and IV, I went to Ashish’s office to discuss these, I asked him to explain to me the basis on which these had been prepared. Specifically I showed him Clause 3.2.1 of the RFQ and wanted him to explain how these eligibility conditions were being met. Ashish did not seem to be very well-informed about this. For instance on the variants he informed me that the variants were the different models mentioned in the customer certificates.

I started to review Annexures II and IV. I found out what Ashish told me on the variants was incorrect. Also the documents as prepared did not specify which Locomotives were AC-AC 3 Phase and IGBT technology. I asked Ashish how are we showing 200 locos of this type and where are we showing it. He said Ramesh had told him that all of GE’s locos were AC-AC 3 Phase and IGBT. I found certain references to AC-DC in the Annexures and told Ashish that this looked different from AC-AC. He said no they are all the same. Some of this conversation took place on emails.[4]

Not convinced by Ashish’s explanation I went to Yashdeep Sule with my questions. He explained that AC-AC was the newest technology whereas GTO and AC-DC were old technologies. He also explained to me what the gauge variations and service application variations meant.

I then made a number of suggestions and corrections in Annexures II and IV.[5] These included:

Advised that Project code referred to an individual identifying code for each certificate and was not meant to categorize models as had been done.
Reviewed the certificates, corroborated and corrected the details that had been wrongly entered in the tables in Annexure IV.
Reviewed the certificates to see whether they conformed to the RFQ requirements. I identified a number of certificates as deficient. Some had no dates, some had blanks, one did not include the name/ designation of the authorized signatory etc.
I also advised that Annexure II be filled out correctly to show the details of technology and variant specifications for each project. Also that more details on variant and technology be included in the Annexure IV tables.
Specifically I wanted us to spell out the technology for each project so that there was no misrepresentation as to whether something was AC-AC or AC-DC. This was also required by the RFQ but had not been done.[6]

Steve told Ashish to check whether we would meet the RFQ requirements if we left out the deficient certificates. Ashish first sent an evasive email on this asking me to take the call. I tried to pin him down and eventually he said we would meet the RFQ requirement on everything except variants. And for variants according to Ashish we needed the Kazakhstan certificate. This was on the basis that we needed 2 different gauges. The third gauge variation was the Vale certificate but GE only had a copy for this and there was some problem in getting the original from Vale. [7]

As Ramesh had earlier advised Ashish not to make any changes on my advice alone but to do so only if Steve Seip agreed, I discussed all my suggestions/ comments with Steve and Jamie Winget. Steve wanted to retain the defective certificates as he felt that we had sufficient certificates even without the defective ones and the Railways could ignore the defective ones. I disagreed saying that the govt could not choose for GE which certificates GE was relying upon. Jamie agreed with me and we decided to leave out the deficient certificates, except those required for prequalification. Jamie agreed with me on my other suggestions as well. Steve made a comment to Jamie on this call about the “garbage” that the sales team had collected. Jamie asked Steve why we were not including passenger locos as a variant. I did not hear Steve’s reply.

At this point I looked at the variant clause in the RFQ again. I started to think that the correct interpretation of 3.2.1 (a) (i) would require at least three different gauges in the absence of a service application variant. The clause says “at least” two variants. If this meant 2 different gauges then the words “at least” would be redundant as this was in any case the minimum. Also I read this clause thus: if all gauges were the same = 0 variant; two different gauges = 1 variant’; and three different gauges = 2 variants.

Ash and Prat were on vacation.[8] But I was continually emailing Ash on the customer certificate issues all through so that he knew what we were dealing with. He did not reply to any email I sent on this or provide any advice or help in any way.

On or around 1 July, I was discussing this with Ashish. I was thinking aloud trying to find a solution. I mentioned that we should discuss whether we could use a statutory auditor certificate for the ones we were missing. I explained that technically the RFQ allowed this. Ashish was quite worked up on the issue. He made a very strange comment that I thought was unfair to my role. He said this was the “only constructive suggestion” I had made so far. I said I would send out an email on this option to the whole group to discuss. And I sent out this email.

There was a RFQ prep review call on the evening of 1 July. Steve was on this call. Jamie was not. Jim Gerson also was not (if I remember correctly).[9]

No one replied to my email of 1 July on the option I wanted us to discuss and consider. On or around 2 July, Ashish told me that Steve had told him that the India team should handle this matter locally. And that there would be no RFQ prep review calls next week. These had been scheduled biweekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He told me that we were going to use the statutory auditor option as I had suggested. I told him that I first wanted us all to discuss the pros and cons of this option. I got the impression that no one wanted to touch the “hot potato” that the certificate issue had become nor take responsibility for a decision.

Because no one else had commented on my proposed option which I had raised for discussion and because I thought it strange that Ashish declared we were going to go ahead with that option without any discussion, I sent out an email on 5 July to the whole group saying that I had brought up this option for discussion and we needed to discuss it. I also asked if GE had sold any passenger locos.[10]

Ash returned to work/ India on 1 July. On or around 1 July, 2 July, and 5 July I tried to discuss this issue with Ash on multiple occasions. But he was evasive. I was also asking Yashdeep if GE had sold passenger locos. Ash said yes. Yash said no. Ash said he would try and find out. I asked Ash if we could still get some certificates. Ash made some noise but basically did nothing. From 1 July until 6 July, Ash and Prat (who had returned to work on 2 July) did nothing on this issue. I believe Yashdeep commented upon Ash’s incompetence and unprofessionalism during this period to Himali. Himali told me this later.

I got in touch with Jamie and Steve to discuss my view on needing three different gauges. Meanwhile no one else was discussing the issue or doing anything about it.

On 6 July, I tried to force a discussion and a decision on the issue. I went to Ash and told him we needed his help on this. I explained how I thought we needed three different gauges. Ash got hassled and said lets talk to Ashish. Both of us went to the conference room where Ashish and Ramesh were working. We all discussed two issues: (i) whether we needed three different gauges; and (ii) whether we should use a new statutory auditor certificate for Kazakhstan (the customer certificate obtained in December 2009 was undated). I asked for Ash’s views on this specifically.

Ash said he did not like the idea of using the statutory auditor certificate because we would be using the statutory auditor of GE Global Sourcing India to certify loco supplies by GE Corporation. He was not convinced on my view about three different gauges being needed. He said Vinod Sharma is sitting with Prat, let me ask him.

A few minutes later Ash returned wth Prat and Vinod Sharma. Prat was all aggressive. He first asked whether Kazakhstan would be the only cert from the stat auditor. When he was informed that was the case, he said that this would stand out like a red flag and therefore we would not do that. He said we would use the Kazakhstan cert we had.

I then tried to speak up about needing three gauges and Prat shut me up with a rude “time-out”.[11] He basically ignored me and was talking to everyone else in the room except me. Someone then said that they were planning to contact Kazakhstan Railways to try and get a new certificate issued. Someone showed a draft that was going to be emailed to Kazakhstan Railways.

The conversation then turned to whether the undated certificate would work in case a new dated certificate could not be obtained in time. Vinod was asked for his views. He said that it might work but he could not be sure. In any case, our only option was to use it unless we got a fresh certificate. He suggested that we try and get a fresh certificate and that if we did get it we should use that. I brought up the issue that we needed to also be aware about how this would play out in a possible Court challenge later by EMD. I told them that if GE got the tender then EMD would very likely challenge it and in such a challenge EMD would raise any and every minor and major defect it found in our documentation. So even if the railways accepted the deficient documentation, we might still face a problem later.[12] At this point, Ramesh interrupted me to say I was wrong because the RFQ said that all bidders undertook not to challenge the Authority’s decision. I then tried to inform them that such language in the RFQ was not a bar to a Court challenge based upon the Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right that the Government act reasonably and fairly. And that writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging award of tenders were filed on a daily basis in the courts. At this point Ash interrupted me very aggressively and rudely and said that I should stop talking about things which were not relevant. I was made to shut up.[13] All through this conversation, Prat, Ash and Ramesh were very aggressive towards me. In any case, the meeting ended with the decision that an attempt would be made to get a fresh certificate from Kazakhstan railways and if that did not come through, then the certificate we had (undated) would be filed.

During the discussion with Vinod Sharma on or around 6 July, Prat and Ash were first adamant that the undated certificate would work and they were insistent there was no need to even try and get a compliant one. Initially even Vinod suggested there was no need to try and get a dated certificate. It was only after I spoke up about how the Railways might not accept a deficient certificate or that EMD might raise the issue in a legal challenge (and how easy it was to get a preliminary injunction in Indian Courts even if the matter had no merit and then cases got held up on account of time delays) that Vinod agreed with me that we should at least try and get a new certificate. The whole discussion then was only about whether we should at least try and get a compliant certificate.[14]

After this meeting, Prat came up to me and asked me to draft a letter that we could attach with the undated certificate that explained when this was obtained. I asked Ramesh to give me the information about when we obtained the certificate. I also recorded this on email. Ramesh sent me this information and supporting emails. The certificate had been requested and obtained in December 2009. I sent another email to the group explaining my point about the constitutionally protected right to challenge “unreasonable and arbitrary” government decision-making and how this right could not be waived by RFQ language. I sent this email because I had been rudely interrupted by Ash when I was making this point.

After lunch I went to Ash and complained about how he had rudely interrupted me when I was trying to make a relevant point. He was angry about both my emails. He said are you trying to leave an email trail? He asked why had I asked Ramesh for details about when the certificate was obtained. I told him Prat asked me to draft that cover-letter and I needed the supporting documentation to record when GE sent out a request for the certificate and when it was received.

Ramesh and Ashish spent the afternoon with Vinod going over the RFQ application. I had earlier requested them to call me when they started this. But they did not. I found them later reviewing the docs and I sat in for the remainder of the review.

That same evening (6 July) a meeting took place in the conference room. I was not told about it nor asked to join. I believe it was attended by Prat, Ash, Ashish, Ramesh and Gaurav Negi. I was speaking with Alpna in her office when all these people came out of the conference room. Prat smiled at me and said now everything has been sorted out. I went into the room where Ash was still there. He told me that they were going to get a new certificate for a new project from Indonesian railways. Plus they had asked Kazakhstan for a fresh certificate and that this was going to be signed the next day hopefully and sent by email and courier. I told Ash that our earlier discussion about using the undated Kazakhstan certificate should be recorded on email as a business decision taken by Prat and Ash. He agreed to do that.

Either the same evening or the next I was speaking with Ash and standing at the door of his office when Prat stopped by. I again brought up the need to record their decision as a business decision. Prat gave me a strange look and walked off.

On or around 7 July, I was told by Ashish that a fresh Kazakhstan certificate had been issued and scanned and sent on email. Plus the original was being couriered. I think Ashish forwarded me this email and I forwarded it to Jamie and Steve.[15] I was told this scanned copy would be included in the RFQ instead of the undated certificate we had. I told Ashish that we need to delay binding as much as possible (maybe even till Sunday) in order to wait for the Kazakhstan original in case we could get it.

Ashish said something around this time but a little later which sounded strange. At one point he insisted that he was going to give the set for binding on Wednesday itself.

A certificate from Indonesian Railways reached in original sometime on 8/9 July.

On or around 7/8 July, I was told that Prat and Ash had met the Railways along with Vinod Sharma and they had been verbally assured that the scanned copy would be accepted.

On trying to discuss this with Ashish I was told that there was no way the Railways would disqualify GE as they needed GE and I was unnecessarily concerned.

On or around 8 July, I walked past Prat’s office and I saw Ramesh, Ashish and Praveena in there along with Prat. Prat had the complied RFQ application before him. I went in and asked if Prat was reviewing the RFQ. I was told yes. I asked why was I not included in this meeting. Everyone looked sheepish. I said we had discussed the need to be inclusive. I was then told that Prat had made some minor changes which I would be briefed on if I was interested. I said that I had wanted to discuss certain issues with Prat on the customer certificates. I made the point that if we were filing and relying upon scanned copies (as we were doing for Kazakhstan and Vale), we needed to be sure that we would eventually obtain the originals as the government might ask for them later. Strangely (in retrospect) there was disagreement from Prat on this point then. I was saying this because I had been told that we would not get a Vale original and I wanted us to be sure we would get the Kazakhstan original. I remember Prat saying something to the effect that it did not matter if the original obtained later looked different from the copy filed. As long as the original was an original. I thought he was saying this in the context of the difficulty in getting a Vale original for the scanned copy that we were filing. He said that if the Railways asked for the Vale original we would get one from Vale even if it was issued later. I also tried to discuss my interpretation that three different gauges were needed.[16] Prat was rude and told me that this was just my opinion which he need not listen to.

Clause 2.9.3 of the RFQ reads: “Verbal clarification and information given by Authority and its employees or representatives shall not in any way or manner be binding on the Authority.” The fact that verbal clarifications had no binding effect and could not be relied upon had been discussed with the team on numerous occasions including when the issue of financial net-worth certificate was being discussed. I only heard from Ashish that Prat, Ash and Vinod Sharma has been verbally assured by someone in the Authority that the scanned copy would be accepted. As a lawyer, I could not give legal advice that there was now no risk of disqualification on account of failure to meet the RFQ requirement to file original customer certificates.[17] I informed Ashish that such verbal assurance did not necessarily protect us. I tried to discuss this with Prat when I walked in upon him reviewing the RFQ. But he was not interested in listening to anything I had to say. Till Friday evening, I assumed we were waiting for the Kazakhstan original. I did not take the decision to give the set for binding on Friday. I was only told that it was being sent. At that point there should have been a discussion or reasoned/ considered decision on what course to adopt as the courier had not arrived. There were three options as I pointed out in my email. This never happened (or I was not consulted) and this was another reason for my Saturday morning email.

I decided to call up Tara and brief her on this. I called her up and told her where we stood; my concern with the copy being filed; that the “assurance” from the Railways was verbal and meant nothing in legal terms; and the concern that even if the Railways accepted the copy, EMD could always raise the issue later. The point of telling Tara was not to find new options but to ensure that she knew where we stood. Tara asked me has Prat warned Lorenzo about this. I said I don’t think so. She asked me to send her a full set of the RFQ application by email.

I asked Ashish to email me a full set for Tara. Again strangely he first refused to do that and said he was not going to compile any new set now. The reason I wanted a new set is because the earlier set with me was not updated to include recent changes. It did not include the new Indonesia certificate and the new dated Kazakhstan certificate copy. I insisted that he give me a new set as it was for Tara and she had asked me for it after I had briefed her. Finally he sent me a fresh compilation that I forwarded to Tara and most likely to Jamie as well.

I think I also called and spoke with Jamie about this.

I also sent an email to Deepak.

On Friday evening (9 July), Ashish gave me the original RFQ application to review. This is the first time I was looking at the original documents. I went through it.[18] All customer certificates were in original except Vale and Kazakhstan. Both of these were black and white copies similar to what I had seen earlier in the scanned compilations sent by Ashish for review on email.

The RFQ was sent for binding on Friday evening. Praveena was apparently handling the binding and she was also obtaining signatures from Savita Sethi (the authorized signatory), getting the document paginated, and photo-copied etc.

I had been trying to contact Deepak Adlakha for the last couple of days as I wanted to brief him also on where we stood and get his views.[19] I finally managed to contact him with great difficulty on Friday evening around 8 pm. He was on holiday in Southeast Asia. I told him about the situation with the certificates. I mentioned the “verbal assurance”, I mentioned the risk of disqualification. He suggested that we consider the possibility of filing both the undated Kazakhstan original and the new scanned dated certificate. I mentioned that these certificates were obtained six months earlier but no one had checked to see if they were compliant. He said that ideally we should have requested for certificates after the date of issue of the RFQ in March of 2010.

The next morning, (Saturday 10 July) I was feeling uneasy about the fact that I had not told Prat directly on email (or maybe even otherwise) that there was a risk of disqualification with a scanned copy. Plus I wanted to convey Deepak’s idea about filing both the undated original and the dated copy.[20] I also wanted to record the fact that the certificates were obtained about six months ago. I therefore sent out an email to Prat on this with copies to all other relevant persons including Tara, Deepak, Jamie, Steve, Jim Gerson, Ramesh, and Ashish.

I got a reply from Ramesh saying it was too late to make changes as the RFQ was already bound.[21] (For the record the RFQ was unbound and rebound twice over this weekend for other reasons. The E loco RFQ had been unbound and rebound on the morning of the submission date itself.) I replied saying that binding would not be a problem.

I then got a call from Deepak. He told me that I should now leave the customer certificate issue to Prat and Ash. He said they had spoken to the Customer and that they had been verbally assured the copy would work. He said I did not need to put everything down on email.[22] He said Prat was not going to reply to my email. I tried to explain that I sent my email because I did not want anyone to say that I had not warned Prat about the risk. Deepak said that if GE did not prequalify, Prat and Ash would lose their jobs so I should leave it to them. He said in such an eventuality, no one would ask what the lawyer said. He said, the fact that the originals are needed is there in the RFQ for everyone to read and that no one will ask whether the lawyer interpreted this for the team.[23]

I had had some lower back trouble coming on for a few days on account of my office chair. This worsened a lot on Saturday morning after I made an abrupt movement. I was in deep pain and unable to straighten my back. However since I had said I would go in to the office in my morning email, I took a lot of painkillers (ibuprofen) and went in. The pain was so severe that I had to take much higher dosage than I usually do and despite that I could still not straighten my back and the pain persisted. I think I had already taken about four pills before I even reached the office. Plus throughout the weekend I was taking double my usual dose every 3-4 hours. My mind was dull, I was in pain, and I was in no position to argue with or challenge anyone. I was not alert mentally and not my usual self. I could not climb the stairs. I could not lift my bag without pain. I could not drive without pain. I was walking the entire weekend with a bent back. Walking around was painful, so was sitting down and getting up. I emphasize this because this was not a mild back pain. I was actually walking with a bent back the whole time. Everyone saw this and the pain I was in despite using painkillers. My coming to the office in this condition was quite extraordinary.

I went into the office around lunch time. Only Ramesh was there.[24] The RFQ had not come in from the binders. I tried to get online but my laptop wouldn’t connect to the GE network. I asked someone to help me. Maybe it was the electrician. We tried different cables, different points but I could not connect. I could not bend or even carry my laptop in my hand from one place to another. I had to request this person to help me.[25] I called Varun and tried to get help on the network issue. Nothing he suggested worked. Apparently, the IP address was not being recognized.[26]

My blackberry was receiving email. On Saturday, I got an email from Brett Begole telling me he had been told I was working on the BHEL back-to-back terms and when would these be ready by. For the record, I had not been told to work on these and these were not something I could prepare on my own. A lot of prior work and inputs were required from other people. This issue relates to the incidents that took place around the attempted Joint GE-BHEL RFQ submission towards the end of June. Prat had tried to use this to blame me and pressurize me over the joint submission issue. Kevin and Jamie helped me out then.[27] I believe Prat told Brett to ask me about this.[28]

Sometime after lunch the RFQ arrived.[29] Also, Ashish and Praveena came in. I was sitting with Ramesh when he received a call from Ash. I could tell they were talking about my email and Ash seemed to be reassuring Ramesh.

We started to go through the bound version. I then saw the Kazakhstan certificate that looked like an original and nothing like what I had seen before. I asked Ashish are you guys playing games with me? Did you get the original? I was upset and irritated that no one had bothered to tell me. Ashish said this is a copy. I said it looks just like an original. Where did you get this? He said we had a color scan and we took a color printout. Ashish said we had a color scan.[30] He also said that it was there in the set I saw on Friday evening. This confused me. I really could not remember at that time if it was there on Friday or not. However I am very sure today that it was not in the set I saw on Friday. Further, my reaction on seeing it on Saturday would also not have been what it was. To clarify, what confused me was Ashish saying it was in the set I saw on Friday when it was not. I was not confused as to whether I had seen it before or not. I had definitely not seen it before and my reaction showed that. But I was confused about and by what Ashish said about it having been in the set on Friday. I remember questioning myself about whether I could have missed seeing this. This is what I meant by “I really could not remember at that time if it was there on Friday or not.” And I did not question Ashish on this point.

I left it at that. Though I think I had a fleeting thought about discussing this further later with Ashish separately. But I never did. I have in retrospect thought about why I left it there and did not see a red flag or do anything more. I think it was because I was not well, heavily medicated, unfocused mentally and not capable of questioning what Ashish was saying. I accepted what Ashish told me in the presence of others i.e., Ramesh and Prat. Plus I think I felt a bit absolved of responsibility after Deepak’s call. I had come in to office with the intention of not saying anything on the certificate issue. I was feeling awkward about my morning email. And what I saw was so totally unexpected that I did not process it fully.[31] I did not expect that someone might fake or tamper with the certificate.[32]

A short while later, Prat came in. He sat down next to me facing Ramesh. He mentioned the morning emails to Ramesh and said something negative about them. I did not say anything. After a while, he was standing by the door and Ashish told him Seema got confused about the Kazakhstan certificate. He looked at me and said we will wait for the original and if it arrives in time we will include it. Prat stayed for a while with Prat and Praveena talking about how Prat was the person who sorted out GE’s turbine issue with Dabhol among other achievements. Prat then left.

When Prat came to the office after lunch on 10 July, there was also some talk about the fact that the Railways would preserve the RFQ documents for many years. I think this started out of discussing the quality of the binding. Prat then said during this conversation that the Railway officials scrutinizing the application would most likely look at the original set only once and then lock it up, and they would mostly use the 2 copies being filed. He seemed to be addressing Ashish/ Ramesh at this time.

I looked through the rest of the original compilation. Ashish, Ramesh and I compared pages in all three sets to see there was no discrepancy between the sets as this was a mistake that had happened in E Loco.

Praveena’s daughters came in (they were waiting in the car downstairs). Praveena and her daughters cross-checked the three copies of Volume 2.

The binding was very badly done, a page was loose. So the binder was called and he was asked to rebind. Plus some pages were incorrectly placed in Volume 2 and these had to be correctly placed.

We were finished with the work. Praveena wanted to order Pizza. Then she suggested we go and eat it somewhere. Ashish said he was going home. I had been feeling a bit awkward about my email so I decided to go with them for the meal. Praveena then drove all of us to this restaurant. Ash joined us there. We had dinner then Praveena dropped me back to the office where my car was. She and I checked to see that the binder had delivered the RFQ and we left. I think I dropped Ramesh to his hotel.

The next morning I came in later than we had arranged because of my back. I was on medication still and my back was still in the same condition. I walked into Prat’s room and interrupted Praveena, Ashish and Ramesh in the middle of a conversation. I said you were discussing my email. They did not deny it. Ramesh said that my email was not required because a decision had already been made on filing the copy. I said, no – we were waiting to see if we would get the original. I think this is when Ashish said I should have just sent my email to Prat, why did I send it to everyone. I said that I did what I thought was required and in the best interest of the company. That stopped the conversation.

The next hour was spent by me looking through volume 2 and rechecking volume 1 after the rebinding. I remember having to request Ashish to bring me volume 2 as I could not carry it. The set was to be sent to Savita Sethi’s home for signatures.

Praveena was preparing the boxes and envelopes with Dhirender. She was rude when I tried to offer some advice.

During this time I asked Ramesh and Ashish if they were tracking the courier to see where it was. I asked has it reached India. Both said they did not know and had not checked. I asked them to check. They were evasive. I think I asked about 3 times but they had still not checked. Finally I said give me the DHL number I’ll check on someone’s computer. Ashish then got up and printed me the Courier tracking sheet which showed that the courier had not reached India. Looking back, I find this reluctance to check and their being evasive on this issue strange.[33]

Then Praveena, Ashish and Ramesh were discussing that Prat wanted Ash to take a look at the RFQ. But Ash was saying he couldn’t come in.[34] So they discussed sending the set to Ash’s home. Finally Ash came in around 1 pm. He started to look through the set. I was sitting with him in Prat’s room.

Ash found a mistake. The technology for the two projects from the year 2000 was wrongly mentioned as IGBT. He discussed this with Ramesh and Ashish who said their information had come from Steve Seip.

Next Ash found what actually was a very minor mistake in the Power of Attorney (POA). Instead of being titled “Power of Attorney”, it was titled “Appendix II Format for Power of Attorney for Signing of Application”. I do not remember if it also said “Power of Attorney” under that.

Ash got very worked up about this. Called up Prat. Called up Vinod Sharma and made a big fuss about this being a big issue.[35] I had told Ash that this was very minor and I did not think it mattered. I think Ash asked Ashish how could such a mistake happen. Ashish went to his computer to check.

I was told that Prat and Vinod agreed with Ash that we needed to get a new POA. I asked Praveena to help us get stamp paper. She did nothing for an hour. I asked Ashish to request Praveena. I asked Ashish to call Roopak Saha who would have to execute the new POA. He was hesitant. Apparently then Ash called Roopak. Roopak was moving around and not at home and was apparently not available until after 4 pm or something. Savita Sethi was leaving for Tokyo that night. Her signature was also needed.

I was making calls to contacts trying to see if we could find stamp paper and a notary. But I was unsuccessful.

Suddenly I was told that Praveena has found a notary on the internet who also had stamp paper. The discussion was that we needed to backdate the POA and therefore the stamp paper had to be back-dated as well. I was told Roopak had agreed to this. Apparently Roopak also agreed to affix his signature after notarization. I was told that an office assistant was going to this notary’s office for the POA.

I found the idea of a notary located on the internet risky and said I would go myself to make sure the notary was genuine. So I asked Ash if I could use his car and driver and went in his car. The number Pravena gave me was for some entity called Dox. The mobile number was +919899760180.

When I got to the notary, it was a hole in the wall kind of place with one person there who was not the notary. This guy pulled out some stamp paper from a drawer with what he told me were the notary’s signatures already on it. I found the signature very suspicious as I could make out no name and it was just a scribble. I was told the notary could not come to the office. I then called up Ash and said we can’t use these papers. I explained why. I told Ash we would use what we have as that document is really ok. Ash tells me why don’t you get it and then we’ll decide if we want to use it. Something about the way he said this made me realize that something was not right. I said no, I am not getting it, we will use what we have. I returned to the office. On the way, I realized that this whole idea of getting a backdated POA was non-compliant. I decided I was not going to get a back-dated POA. I also thought that maybe Ash had tried to trap me earlier.

When I told the guy at Dox that I was not going to get the POA or the stamp paper and was about to leave, he started asking me for money because he had had to come in especially on a Sunday and open the office. I refused to pay him and left.

I returned to the office and told Ash that if we need a POA, it would have to be of today’s date. There is no rule against getting a POA notarized on a Sunday. I told Ash we needed to be fully compliant on this. Ash was still very insistent that we need a new POA.

I called up Deepak Adlakha and told him what the problem with the POA was. He agreed with me that the POA we had could be used and would not be non-compliant. I told him we would use that but still try and get a new POA if we could manage it as Ash was insisting.

All through this I was on medication, in pain and not functionally optimally either mentally or physically. I believe that if I had been well, I would have been more assertive on this issue from the beginning. I was essentially following Ash’s direction without being in a position mentally to challenge it. Interestingly, all this while, neither Ashish nor Ramesh offered to help on this issue. They were simply watching what was happening. Throughout this time, Prat was in constant touch with Ash and Praveena on the phone. But Prat did not once call me to ask me for my views on whether we needed a new POA. I think at some point soon after Ash raised the issue, Prat and Ash decided to use this to harass me as well as to try and trap me into participating in a non-compliant act.

After speaking with Deepak, I called Prat and told him that both Deepak and I were in agreement that the POA we had was OK. I told Prat that I was still trying for a POA but it would be dated 11 July. Prat asked me who all was in office. He said he was coming in. I told Ash about Deepak’s view as well.

I was making frantic calls to my contacts to see if we could find stamp-paper and a notary. Finally, a lawyer friend’s clerk did locate a stamp paper vendor in his house in Moti Nagar. At my request, the vendor issued stamp paper in the name of GE Global Sourcing for 11 July. A friend also assured me that he knew a notary who would execute the document even if we took it to his house in Ghaziabad at midnight.

Meanwhile Prat had come in. We were all sitting in his office. We started to talk about the POA. I told Prat that in my view what we had was fine and we could use it. Ash then reacted very strangely, his mask slipped and with an angry face he told me that I had been going on about the certificates for weeks, and now was not concerned about the POA. This was another brief moment when the truth shone through. I looked at Ash and told him send your driver to this address for the stamp paper, I will get you your POA.

Prat then jumped in and said wait. I will ask Amit Kumar (Amarchand) about this. He called up Amit, put his phone on speaker and told him this is what the issue with the POA is, can we use it. Amit said yes, I will bet my career that you can use this. Prat with a flourish then told us that we would use what we had. I kept silent and just listened. Ash then asked but how did this mistake happen. Prat then looked at Ash and gestured that he should let it be.

I believe Ash and Prat intentionally built up the whole issue on the POA on 11 July, created a false environment of panic and urgency, and then tried to harass me. They were either getting back at me or had a more sinister motive to distract me, bully and intimidate me, and drum up allegations against me. I think at one point Ash went much further and actually tried to encourage me to do an illegal act. If I had gone ahead and obtained the POA from the “notary”, I would have been guilty of procuring a fake document. I could have been blackmailed. I believe they did all this because they were trying to hide their having faked the Kazakhstan certificate. Both Ash and Prat were acting with a criminal intent.

Were Prat and Ash really so concerned about the minor mistake that they were ready to backdate a POA, use a fake notary or do something as risky as finding a notary on the internet? What Praveena found was essentially a fake documentation outfit, that illegally fakes documents. And they had decided to send an office assistant there, until I stepped in and said I would go.

I had told Ash at the very beginning that I thought there was no problem with the POA we had. At what point did Prat or Ash speak to other lawyers? Did Prat by any chance call Amit Kumar while he was still at home. If they did not call other lawyers, why did they not do that? Prat has otherwise been known to call up Amit Kumar (usually) or even Deepak at the slightest need. Prat did not even call me.

When I called Ash from the Notary office, I told him we could not use this notary or the papers because they were fake. Yet, he told me that why don’t you get the document executed and bring it to the office and then we’ll decide what to do. Not only was I being pressured into getting a non-compliant backdated POA, but Ash encouraged me to obtain a patently illegal and fraudulent document. I am so glad that despite being unwell and medicated and under great stress, I refused. The way Ash said this warned me. He was clearly trying to trap me.

It was after about three-four hours of all the drama and hue and cry over the POA, that I finally called Deepak. Ash insisted we needed a new POA even after I told him that Deepak agreed with me that we did not. If it was so necessary then why did they stop once I found a compliant source for stamp paper. Why did they call Amit Kumar then and not earlier?

Ash told me the next evening (Monday) that it was not possible to get the POA eventually because Savita had a flight to catch. This is when both he and Prat were lying to me and were pretending to be contrite in order to stop me from quitting. However, if it had been essential, would not Savita have cancelled/ postponed her trip?

We were all still sitting around.[36] Ash made a call to someone in Erie and checked on the technology mistake he found earlier. This needed to be corrected. It was decided that the RFQ would have to unbound and rebound for this as pages needed to be substituted.

After that was decided, I started to try and tell Prat what I had told Ramesh the day before – that we should have used the Dankuni language for the E Loco RFP IP clause comment. Prat started to accuse me of trying to put Ramesh down, and of not having raised the issue in a timely fashion. I tried to explain that I had formulated a query as requested by Prat on Friday morning and I saw Ramesh’s language only after he had sent it to the Railways. Prat flew into a rage at me, started shouting and accusing me of being unprofessional, wouldn’t let me explain, shouted at me that he would not allow anyone to be a bottle-neck and was very obnoxious. I think he shouted at me at the top of his voice for about five minutes non-stop in front of everybody sitting there.[37] And his shouting at me was totally unjustified and uncalled for.

I kept sitting there listening to him. He reduced me to tears. Everyone saw me crying. Once again I think I reacted this way because of all that had happened earlier on the POA and because I was unwell and not my usual self.

I said nothing.

After sometime most people left the room. I was having problems moving, and especially sitting down and standing up. So I was gearing myself to make a dignified exit. I then told Prat that Brett Begole had emailed me about the back-to-back terms and that I wanted to discuss this with Prat sometime. Prat told me to tell Brett Begole that Prat did not want to speak to me about this. I got up and left his office. I went to my room, I was crying. I thought for about 5-10 minutes. I decided to quit.

I went to Prat’s office and told him that I had decided to quit and that he should find a lawyer he respected and trusted. He said that is your decision. I said yes and I have taken the decision. I told him I would send my resignation letter the next day. I then went home.

I reached home and after a while I received a call from Deepak. Deepak told me that Prat had called him and told him what I had said to Prat. He asked me if this was true. I said yes, I did not want to work with Prat. Deepak never asked me what happened. He asked me if I was sure of my decision or if I had spoken in anger. I said I was sure. I asked Deepak if he could perhaps find some other role for me in GE. He said he was also thinking about that but that I needed to give him a few days as he was really tied up and because he also needed to talk to John Flannery about this. I said OK.

I will describe events from 12 July onwards in a separate note. I do want to mention one incident. About a week to 10 days after 12 July, I asked Ashish if the original Kazakhstan certificate had arrived.[38] He said yes. I told him we need to decide whether we want to hand it over to the Railways on our own. I also said we need to make sure that the Railways does not treat the copy we had filed as an original. Ashish asked me sometime in the latter part of July, if I did not want GE to prequalify? I thought that was a strange question.

Seema Sapra

6 December 2010

[1] There was some tension/ turf-battles between Ramesh and Ashish. At some point we were told by Steve that Ashish would lead in getting the documentation ready.

[2] I had reviewed selected documents earlier with special queries.

[3] This contained the scanned customer certificates.

[4] These conversations as well as Ashish’s comment that the models were the variants makes it clear that whoever had interpreted the RFQ on what certificates were required had interpreted it incorrectly. Actually I wonder if anyone even bothered to interpret it. If the certificates were obtained in December/ January and the RFQ was issued in March, then who did interpret the RFQ? Or were the certificates blindly obtained on the basis of what was done in 2008? Such “copy-pasting” on the basis of what was done earlier without obtaining adequate legal and other advice was the way Ramesh and Praveena were operating for Prat until I and Ashish joined. This practice of “copy-pasting” has resulted in many mistakes both in the Dankuni and the E Loco RFQs. I had the opportunity to correct a few but not I suspect all mistakes in the E Loco RFQ. This is because I was not allowed by Prat to review the E Loco RFQ fully (more on this in a separate note). Many mistakes would again have been replicated in D Loco if these had not been corrected by me, with help from Jamie and Steve.

[5] All of these were recorded on email.

[6] When this detailing was done, it turned out Ashish and Ramesh were wrong about all GE locos being AC-AC and IGBT.

[7] At one point early on, I was told Vale had refused to provide an original. The Vale certificate was also relevant for the 6000 HP requirement. This had been discussed earlier and GE had no option but to rely upon two different year 2000 projects to meet this requirement. There was a risk these projects from the year 2000 could be interpreted as falling outside the prescribed time period. If we had gotten the original Vale certificate, that would have helped on the variant requirement as well. But no one (including Ash) made an effort to get this. I was told the only way to get an original from Vale was for Dave Tucker to contact Vale. Why could someone not have asked Dave Tucker to help with this?

[8] Remarkably both went on long vacations at this crucial time. I believe it was to avoid being around and to avoid being held accountable for the RFQ. This is a good measure of their professionalism and commitment or lack of it. Both had left someone as incompetent as Ramesh in charge, who (as I will demonstrate in this and other notes) made zero contribution to the RFQ prep except fight turf battles, speak the most and the loudest on our prep calls and interrupt everyone, obstruct people from doing their jobs, being grossly incompetent and negligent on the certificates and contributing to the dysfunctional and tense work environment. Ramesh became completely silent once the certificates issue cropped up after my review. Ashish told me at one point that Ramesh was not allowing him to do his job. This is after I made the same complaint about Ramesh to Ashish. Prat sitting in the United States was calling up Ramesh and Gaurav multiple times on a daily basis. An examination of the entire RFQ prep process will demonstrate that almost everything Ramesh did was wrong and had to be corrected, he made no positive contribution and he along with Ash and Prat was responsible for the problems we had with the customer certificates.

[9] These were biweekly calls that included Steve, Jim Gerson, Ramesh, Ashish, me, and occasionally Gaurav or Ash. Jim commented on the dys-functionality of these calls.

[10] I asked this because I found out that EMD was able to show supply of passenger locomotives.

[11] I view such behavior as bullying. Not letting me speak and contribute to the discussion prevented me from doing my job.

[12] I also said that the Railways might use legal advisors and that they might advice the railways not to overlook errors like undated certificates. The RFQ prescribed a format for the certificates which included the date of issue. The RFQ stated: “It may be noted that in the absence of any detail in the above certificates, the information would be considered inadequate”.

[13] Once again an example of bullying.

[14] Getting Prat to agree to even attempt to do this was difficult. From what I have observed of Prat’s working style, he does not like to face up to issues when under pressure, and that is why he relies so heavily upon “Yes Men” like Ramesh Mathur notwithstanding his incompetence.

[15] As I do not have access to my email records at GE, I cannot be sure if this email was forwarded to me and if I sent it on to Jamie and Steve. Maybe it was the Indonesia certificate email or both Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Further, if I did open the annexed pdf file, it would have been nothing more than a quick glance to note that the certificate was dated.

[16] This is apparently how GE had interpreted this in 2008.

[17] Also I did not know who had given such verbal assurance and what had been discussed.

[18] This was a rather quick review by me. I did not look at the documents substantively or in detail, as that part was already all complete. I probably looked to check everything was there and in the right order.

[19] Actually I had been trying to contact Deepak for over a week just on the RFQ.

[20] I thought this was a good idea and should have been discussed.

[21] It would be interesting to see what phone-calls between the group preceded Ramesh’s email.

[22] I think he was referring to my having recorded his suggestion that we consider filing both documents.

[23] Clause 2.12.2 of the RFQ read with Clause 2.13.2 (i) and instruction 10 of Annex IV makes it clear that the RFQ required original customer certificates. The Authority could treat an application as non-responsive in case original certificates were not submitted as required. The need for originals was discussed by me with Steve, Ashish, Ramesh, Gaurav and Emily on an earlier call in the context of the financial net-worth certificate also (see instruction 7 of Annex III). GE filed original customer certificates in 2008 and intended to file original customer certificates in 2010. Given all this, relying upon a verbal assurance from the Railways was risky. Maybe Prat and Ash also realized the risk though they outwardly maintained there was no risk. Clause 1 of Appendix I (the letter comprising the application) cannot be read to mean that there was no requirement in the RFQ to file original documents.

[24] I told Ramesh on Saturday that he should have shown me the E Loco RFP comments that he had sent out to the Railways late Friday evening because I would have recommended that we use the same language for the IP Clause that we used for Dankuni (as this had been vetted by Shawn McClintic). Ramesh had modified the clause himself without discussing with me.

[25] I do not remember his name.

[26] The problem was quite strange and corrected itself on Monday. I would not put it past Prat and Praveena to have managed this somehow with the help of someone in IT.

[27] There is a lot that happened over this issue in the last two weeks of June. Jamie’s words to me at that time were that Prat had dug himself into a hole that he could not get out of. And that Prat had made a lot of enemies in Erie because of how he treats people.

[28] I will deal with this issue in another note.

[29] This was probably around 4 pm.

[30] I do not remember for sure but wonder if I heard or understood Ashish say we also had a color scan. I think I remember thinking he was referring to a scan I had not seen.

[31] I did not think through everything that happened until the end of September after I had left GE. I could not figure out what was going on while I was in GE and in the middle of everything. I sent my email of 1 October as soon as it hit me that maybe this is what was making Prat, Ash, Ramesh and Praveena so worried. They were very panicky after I said I was raising my concerns. This also explains a lot of things that happened after 12 July including the heightened targeting by Prat; using Deepak to get me to leave; the manipulation of the manner and timing of my leaving; the attempt to get me to leave without notice after 3 August; the panicked attempt of Prat to get me to work on D Loco after 11 August when I told Alpna I was going to stay and raise my concerns which she promptly went and told Ash, Prat and Praveena; and Prat ensuring that I am not offered another role in GE by speaking with John Flannery (as I was informed by Deepak). I will describe all this in great detail. Plus I will explain why all this did not fall into place for me until when it did.

[32] I also want to state that my physical condition (my hurt back), the amount of pain I was in, and the impaired physical movement really meant I should not even have come in. Despite that and at the risk of hurting my back further, I had come in after medicating myself heavily. In these circumstances, I accepted what I was told on the certificate. I therefore do not blame myself in any way for not being able to prevent the submission of the faked certificate if that is what it is. In my view, I already did more than required of me by simply coming in to work that weekend. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I relied upon what I was told by Ashish. Those who took advantage of my medical condition, lied to me, and bullied me are answerable for all their actions, including any fraud and forgery. Additionally, it seems as if Prat asked Deepak to call and tell me not to follow up on the certificates. I wonder if I might have done something differently if Deepak had not called. Further, I was harassed and bullied on Sunday despite my being very unwell. I would describe this behavior as not only criminal but cruel.

[33] I wonder if behind this reluctance lay the intent to tell me later that the original had arrived and had been substituted. I would never have known the truth. And no one else would have. But I insisted on asking. Also, the whole thing about my Saturday morning email. Again, I wonder if I had not sent that email, was everyone including me supposed to be told that the original had arrived and been included. No one would have checked to see when the courier arrived. And no one would have ever known the truth. Was this the plan that my email disrupted? And my subsequent physical presence?

[34] Actually Ash did not want to review the RFQ. Another example of avoiding responsibility. But Prat was insistent. Is it not remarkable that Ash did not review the RFQ until the last day and then too upon being pressurized to do so? Ash and Prat were the two key guys responsible for this deal in India.

[35] According to Ash this error was huge enough to disqualify GE.

[36] At some point Prat had rudely put his legs up on the table.

[37] Actually I think he yelled at me for longer. Maybe 10 minutes. Plus he went on about this issue for about 20-25 minutes.

[38] I am not sure but this might have been in the week starting 26 July when Prat was in the US. I remember that Prat was traveling or busy when I spoke with Ashish.

Note 2

12 July to 3 August 2010

The note below is a broad summary. It is neither comprehensive nor fully detailed.

I think during this period I was in a state of psychological shock. I was under severe stress, was not sleeping well, was eating badly, and was coming in to work late.

Plus the atmosphere at work became very abusive and hostile. At the same time, a lot of work was thrown at me with unrealistic deadlines and unreasonable and hostile demands. People ganged up against me over the work I was required to do.

12 July

I came in.

Ash spoke to me briefly in the evening – I told him did you hear how Prat spoke to me and that I was not the kind of person to put up with that.

I asked to speak with Prat. He came in, looking upset and sorry for what happened. I told him he needed to find a lawyer he could work with and someone he respected and trusted. He told me he did accept everything I said (the advice I gave) even if he did not tell me that himself. We talked and I tried to tell him what I thought had been going wrong. (We did not talk about the weekend of 10 and 11 July.) I thought Prat seemed to listen. He gave me to understand that he wanted me to stay.

I was still not sure if things would change. I spoke with Ash the day after or the next. I told him that I spoke with Prat and Prat wanted me to stay but I was not sure if things would improve. I said that it would be better for the deal if I left now than after a month if things did not improve. I said I thought Praveena was the problem. I asked him for his advice on whether I should stay. He said I should stay, give it another shot, hang in there.[1]

I decided to stay. I called Deepak to tell him. I said that I had spoken with Ash and Prat and we had decided I would stay. I asked him to still keep me in mind if something else came up elsewhere in GE, because I would prefer that. Deepak said but that is not what they told me. He said that I should look for another job. He said these guys are very clever, they will not tell you themselves. I asked Deepak if Ash said that also. Deepak said yes. Deepak then told me that he and I could not even imagine who all Prat and Ash could reach out to. He said Prat might have spoken with John Flannery also and that John would ensure that Prat got whatever legal support he wanted.

Maybe a couple of days later, I asked Deepak if he was already looking for someone else for my position. He said yes and that he was interviewing candidates for other positions and was asking them if they would be interested in my job profile. I told Deepak that he had known how tough things were in Transportation and how Prat had tried to blame me over the Joint GE-BHEL consortium issue.[2] Deepak told me that if someone had tried to blame him then he would have left. I said that this was very unfair. He said life is unfair. I asked Deepak if there was anything else in GE that I could do. Deepak mentioned a couple of open positions but said they would not suit me. I said I was ready to take up any position and even move to Bangalore. Deepak said Prat might have spoken to John Flannery about me in negative terms and that if Deepak hired me then he would have to explain to John why he was hiring me for another role.

I told Deepak that in that case, I would leave immediately and that I did not want to be a stop-gap arrangement. Deepak got upset and told me I should not leave him in the lurch like this.

Prat was travelling and returned on 19 July. I went to him and told him that Deepak had told me that he was looking for someone else for my job. Prat said I should talk to Deepak about that. I asked Prat if he knew about this. Prat said yes. He then said that he was not the person who had been speaking to people. I asked Prat if someone was speaking to people about me. Prat said yes. I told Prat that I would leave and not be a stop-gap arrangement.

I was very upset. Also, I was upset with Deepak that he had not told me that someone was speaking to people about me. I thought Deepak was not being straightforward. I could not figure out what was going on. Around this time, Himali came to my office and tried to convince me to stay. I decided that I would stay. I think I did this because I was being pushed out and I thought I have a contract, why should I leave like this. If someone wanted me to leave, then they needed to tell me why.

This week itself, I must have spoken with Tara (either before or after my decision to stay). I told her that Prat had been talking to Deepak about me. Tara told me that Prat had mentioned me in some meeting and that Brett Begole had said that Seema was just trying to do her job. Tara also said, that she and Jamie thought I was doing well, and that she would “fight to the death” to keep a lawyer who was trying to keep the company safe.

I decided to stay. Soon after, I received a call from Sanjeev Adlakha, Deepak’s cousin. This might have been on 22 July. Sanjeev was my classmate in law school and knew I was working in GE. He had recommended me to Deepak when I applied for this job. Sanjeev told me Deepak had told him that the team I was working with was giving me trouble. I said yes, it had been quite tough. Sanjeev told me he had called to advise that I should stay until I found another job as that would be much easier than finding a job after quitting. I told Sanjeev that I had decided to stay since I had a contract.

In this week, I was also trying to work on the back-to-back terms for BHEL that Brett Begole was sending me urgent mails about. I told Prat I was working on it but I needed his help. Prat sarcastically said “lucky Brett”. I told Prat that he was the one who had asked Brett to ask me about this. I asked Prat and Ash on Tuesday/ Wednesday if I could discuss this with them. I raised a couple of other points about the definition of project agreements, and the clause providing for suspension of the contract. Prat got angry at my raising these issues.[3] He and Ash then said they hadn’t read the RFP for a long time and they needed to go through it. We discussed setting up a group to do this (go through the RFP together) the next day. I said we could also discuss my questions on the back-to-back terms then. Prat said we can also get Amarchand on call for this group meeting. He was trying to undermine me. I said there was no need. Ash agreed with me, and said lets not get them because of their charges. (What I did not understand the whole time I was in GE until the very end was that Prat and Ash worked as a team and were playing me as a team.)[4]

The next day, I asked Prat and Ash if we could discuss the RFP and the back-to-back terms, but they pretended to be busy. I believe they were deliberately avoiding discussing this with me. The intent I now believe was to set me up for failure on this and then tell Brett I had not delivered.[5] I did get Ash to talk to me for about half an hour, but then he said he had meetings.[6]

Because Prat was being difficult over my work (the back-to-back terms and some other routine work, plus he was sending some very critical and unfair emails about my work) during these 2-3 days, and because I needed Prat’s support for my work, I decided to try and talk with him. I called him at home on or around Tuesday and asked if we could have lunch some day later in the week. I said I wanted to discuss how to improve our working relationship. Prat said we could possibly do that, on Thursday or Friday. But he never mentioned it again.

On Thursday again, Prat and Ash again pretended to have no time to discuss the back-to-back terms with me. I specifically asked them if they had time. I decided to send them what I had done on email, for the record. Prat replied saying I should schedule time. I asked Praveena. She did not schedule a meeting. I tried to again find time with Prat on Friday, but he said he was busy. He asked me for a hard copy to take with him to the US. I gave it to him.

The kick-off calls in Erie must have been arranged this week. I was not told about them. I was not told about Janaki’s appointment as project manager or that she was going to Erie as well. I knew nothing about what was going on, whereas it seems everyone else did. I was completely out of the loop.

Deepak told me sometime around this time that he had had long conversations with Tara and Jamie. This was either towards the end of the week of 19 July or maybe the week after that.

On another occasion soon after, Deepak asked me how things were going. I said they were going well. Deepak said something to the effect that Prat had changed his mind about me before, so it was possible that he might still do so in the future.

The next week (week starting 26 July) I again got some emails from Brett and Jamie about the back-to-back terms. I sent what I had done to Brett and Jamie with an explanation. I was not on any kick-off call or other discussion in Erie.[7] I spoke with Jamie on Thursday and he told me that he and Tara had had meetings with Prat on the deal. Jamie told me he would be working on the contracts including the BHEL back-to-back terms directly from Erie implying that I would not be doing that.

Meanwhile the BHEL MOU interactions were going on all through the weeks of 19 and 26 July.[8]

In the two weeks from 19 July to 30 July, I was working on the turbocharger deal review, the BHEL MOU, the back-to-back terms, some signaling NDAs, tenders and contracts including ITP issues.[9] There was also pressure from Sanjeev on the SVB application, some service contracts, the tax compliance documentation, etc.[10]

On or around 29 July, I went shopping with Praveena.[11] I was trying to improve relations. I also spent a couple of hours with her the next day generally talking.[12]

Some signaling contracts had ITP issues. I insisted that we needed ITP approval for bidding as sub contractor with a Prime. Ashish and Ash were very difficult on this.[13] Ash especially because I believe this legal advice exposed Ash to charges of submitting non-compliant bids in the past where requisite ITP approval was not obtained.

2 August

On Monday, Ramesh called me to ask if he could have a copy of the back-to-back terms with BHEL because he wanted to use them for discussions with Bharat Forge.

I had learnt that Janaki had been designated project manager for D loco and was also in Erie for the kick-off calls. I saw her sitting in the conference room on Monday. I had never met her, so I went in to introduce myself. I also mentioned Ramesh’s request. Janaki was very cold and dismissive towards me for no apparent reason. This ties in with my belief that legal support for the D loco deal was discussed in Erie in my absence and a decision was taken to exclude/ replace me.

On Monday, Prat and I had discussions over the ITP issue and the BHEL MOU. I had been working on the BHEL MOU for the last two weeks. Prat was rude and hostile. I thought some of the behaviour was because of Praveena.[14] I told Prat that I could not continue working like this. When I complained Prat said something that now ties in with the rest. He said he had been in Delhi only 2 weeks since mid June, so how could I complain of his having harassed me.[15]

I told Prat that Jamie had told me about the meetings he had in Erie with Tara and Jamie and asked why he did not take me to Erie as well. Prat said that it would have cost money.[16]

That evening Prat stopped by my office when he was leaving. He apologized for his behavior in the morning. I told him I was trying to do my best. He said something about the chemistry not being right. I said I thought there was no problem with the chemistry. Prat said he was trying not to get riled up at me but I pressed all his hot buttons.

That night I could not sleep and I woke up late the next day. I was not on the Tuesday morning op review call (3 August).

3 August

I got a call from Praveena asking me if I was on the morning call. I said no. She said Prat wanted to speak with me to discuss a contract with me, this was the transport services contract. She asked if I was coming in. I said yes.

I came in around 11.30. Prat and Gaurav were not there but their stuff was. I asked Praveena where Prat was. She said he had gone for lunch.

At lunch time I saw Gaurav, Janaki, Deepak walk in together. I asked Gaurav and he told me they had gone to BHEL to discuss the MOU that I had been working on. Deepak had not previously worked on the MOU at all. I tried to speak with Deepak but he avoided me by saying he had a meeting.

I then realized that I had been excluded without even the courtesy of being formally informed.[17]

I spoke with Gaurav and told him I felt insulted. He told me not to get worked up. I spoke with Himali and she told me to go on vacation.

I asked Prat about the meeting with BHEL after lunch. He said I was not in office so he took Deepak. I told Prat that he could have called me or told me about it earlier. Prat said something about his not having planned it.[18]

I called Prat about this again later that day. I asked him if he needed me to do something on the MOU. He said Deepak was handling it. I protested angrily over the way I had been treated and told Prat I would quit.

I told Gaurav I was going to quit. He suggested that I do that without creating a fuss and I should leave GE without harming relations as I might someday interact with the same people in future. He said (and he repeated it on later occasions) that how I left GE would determine the possibility of my ever coming back to GE.

I decided to quit and sent in a resignation email on 3 August to Deepak and Prat. Neither replied.

I spoke with Ashish after this. During this conversation he suggested that everyone could see that there were problems between me and Prat.

[1] The next day or maybe the day after that, I received a call from the Dox Number. The guy insisted that I still had to pay him money for the fact that they had opened the office on Sunday. I said I did not think so. But he kept insisting, so I told him I would see what I could do. I went to Ash and told him that the Dox guy had called me and why. I gave him their number and address, told him he should sort this out and that his driver knew where the place was. Ash said he would do this.

[2] Deepak himself had told me in mid-June that he knew how tough things were for me and he wondered how I managed to go in to the office everyday. Also, during the GE-BHEL joint consortium RFQ issue, Deepak had told me Prat was either trying to blame me or he was trying to find a solution. We had had other conversations besides these on this issue as well.

[3] This was unjustified and I was making very useful points. I think this was an example of Prat making himself deliberately obnoxious to upset me. Or he did not want me analyzing the RFP.

[4] Once they were talking in a meeting about one of them playing the bad guy and the other the good guy in some talks with Railway officials. I think this was how they were interacting with me also. Prat was more obviously the bad guy and Ash would then step in as the good guy. Sometimes Prat would be friendly and nice. I was being both misled and pumped for information this way. This was duplicitous behavior intended to fool me. Ash dropped his mask very rarely. Himali described him to me afterwards as two-faced. The whole time I was at GE, Prat and Ash’s interactions with me were scheming, planned, calculated, and in bad faith with them acting in concert. Also party to such scheming and deception were Praveena and Ramesh, and I now understand Ashish as well after 12 July. Others helping Prat “handle” me were Gaurav, Alpna, Sanjeev, Arvind and Ashwani.

[5] I can now see that the back-to-back assignment was a strategy by Prat calculated to make me fail so that Prat could then complain to Brett about my work.

[6] Again I think this was just a pretence by Ash of being the good guy.

[7] I believe Alpna who had gone to Erie for these calls and related meetings and maybe Gaurav (who was in Erie for the last two weeks working on the deal ) were in these meetings.

[8] I will deal with this separately.

[9] All of these were supposedly urgent and left me with no time to do anything else, leave alone think and observe what was going on. I did not see that I was being excluded from the D Loco deal. I believe that during this period Prat, Ash and Deepak spoke with people in Erie, Gurgaon and perhaps Fairfield about replacing me. It seems from surrounding circumstances that a decision might have been made to replace me, but I was not informed.

[10] It was a very busy time. At the same time, there was a lot of aggressive and hostile behavior towards me from many quarters. The turbo-charger deal review generated a lot of hostility towards me from Alpna. Sanjeev was hostile on the SVB issue. Ashish who supported me in the past was not supporting me, though to my face he was always supportive. I will deal with the general team behavior towards me separately. I believe the atmosphere became abusive. Problems, hurdles and pressure were deliberately being created for me.

[11] This is when I think I heard Praveena answer a call with “Ash Honey”.

[12] This is when she told me that Prat’s wife did not use their couple membership in the gym and that she wanted to ask Prat if she could go as his wife. I reported this as a fact showing a close relationship between Prat and Praveena. However while preparing this note I realized this might also have been a deliberate lie given what I had told Ash.

[13] Rasmi Ray and Bhavin Shah also behaved very unreasonably and aggressively over these issues. I believe the broader team was roped in to create stress for me. There is a lot of detail about this aspect that I am able to share.

[14] At the time and until writing this down I thought that Prat’s behavior that day was because of Praveena. I now realize that I had told Ash on 13/14 July that I thought the problems with Prat were because of Praveena. Were they play-acting to make me leave or to throw me off track? In the week of 19 July, I saw Prat become rude towards me after exchanging glances with Praveena on many occasions. I complained about this after I resigned on 3 August including to Deepak. When I resigned on 3 August, I spoke to three people before quitting – (1) Gaurav – I told him Prat had treated me like shit throughout my time at GE. I said I don’t know if it was because of Praveena, maybe they were having an affair; (2) Ashish – I told him Prat was treating me very badly and no one sitting in Erie could help me. Ashish kept telling me to go to HR, appeared sympathetic, told me to speak to Erie, or Deepak. I said Deepak was also not supporting me and neither was Arvind Subramanium; I said no one in the US could help me if Prat did not want to work with me (3) Himali – who told me not to quit but to go on vacation. Actually I spoke to Ashish after I sent in my email saying I was quitting.

[15] I think I was close to breaking down. Deepak walked past the office and saw me. So did Janaki from the conference room.

[16] I have omitted my earlier statement that I think I realized at this point that I was being excluded. I did not realize this then and in fact until much later, perhaps even until much after 20 September. I told Prat that Jamie was doing the back to back terms and I would tell him that Ramesh wanted them. Prat told me to work on the BHEL MOU.

[17] I think I was being eased/ pushed out and I imagine the expectation was that I would get embarrassed and leave on my own. Or perhaps, the intent was to terminate my contract for non-performance and the ground was being prepared for that.

[18] I think he did plan it. I believe it was intended to humiliate me and no one including Deepak even had the courtesy to speak to me about it before or afterwards.

Note 3

Sequence of some events between 3 August and 20 September 2010 – This is a broad outline and is neither comprehensive nor fully detailed.

3 August

I resigned. I felt a palpable sense of relief and I even mentioned this to some people.[1]

4 August

I spoke with Prat. He asked me if I had any special reason for resigning. I said we both knew it was not working out.

I said I would serve the notice period but did not want to work on D Loco.

He said he would speak to Arvind about the notice period.

Prat asked me to prepare a note on limitation of liability for the turbocharger deal review. He and Ashish then told me they couldn’t share a draft presentation with me because I had sent in my notice. I needed this presentation to prepare the note on limitation of liability.

I forwarded my resignation letter to Tara and Jamie.

I called Arvind. He suggested I leave immediately because otherwise I might not like the awkward silences around me.

Jamie called. Said he was sorry to hear and had been very happy with my work. Offered to give a reference, to help in any other way, and to speak to Tara and Deepak about the possibility of moving me to a non-hostile work environment.[2] I told Jamie that Arvind wanted me to leave immediately. Jamie said, no I should stay for a transition, at least until he came to Delhi in two weeks.

I called Arvind and told him that Jamie wanted me to stay for a notice period.

5 August

I told Prat I would stay for the notice period and had no problem working on D Loco until I left. Prat seemed upset but told me I could go with the team for an E Loco pre-bid meeting the next day. [3]

Prat called me to discuss some queries on E loco. These were all issues I had raised earlier which he had dismissed angrily at the time I raised them. He made some comment in front of Janaki Choudhary and Ashish Malhotra that he was having to do all the work.

There was a tollgate 1 call for D Loco. I said I would attend that. He then tried to embarrass me by telling me publicly that I need not attend this call. Another attempt to make things awkward for me.

6 August

Prat and Ashish were worried about some problem with the certificates in the D Loco RFQ that they had presumably been told about by the Railways.[4]

I attended the E Loco pre-bid meeting.

9 August

Tara sent me an email. It read as if she thought I had already left or was about to leave. She asked me to share my views if I was “willing to share”. She did not ask why I had quit.

I replied saying I would like to discuss the circumstances. And that I was still working as advised by Jamie.

Tara replied and asked me to give her a call. She was at the airport. I called and spoke with Tara. But the impression I got was that she was speaking to me as a formality. The conversation was very casual and I was left with a sense that the decision to remove me had already been taken. For someone who had told me about 10 days earlier that she would if necessary fight to the death for me, Tara was not very concerned about why I decided to leave. I did not get a real hearing.

On this call, I asked Tara if she knew that there was a mistake in the D Loco bid last time. She said “not that she could remember”.

She told me that she could try speaking with Prat but she could not force Prat to work with me. She said the deal was very important and her first priority was to provide legal support to Prat for that. She said maybe I could come back after a break. I told her I agree the deal was important.

Tara did not mention the possibility of my working with her or completing my contract. We both understood that I would leave.

10 August

This was my birthday. I felt very unfairly/ badly treated because of the way I had been targeted. I also thought that I had not received adequate support. I decided to stand up for myself and sent an email withdrawing my resignation.

I spoke with Deepak in the afternoon about this and told him I wanted to stay and raise concerns.

Deepak tried to bully and intimidate me into leaving. He said Prat could terminate my contract at any point and without any reason. I insisted I would stay and that if GE/ Prat wanted me to leave then they should terminate my contract. I also said that GE had certain policies and I thought the way I was treated was against those policies.

I asked Deepak how I could raise my concerns. He said he would get back to me.

I mentioned that Prat was targeting me and that it was possibly because of the D Loco lies in 2009 and because of my conversation with Radhika about Praveena. I mentioned that the targeting had been going on for a long time and everyone was aware of it.

11 August

Alpna came to see me and asked about my resignation. I told Alpna that I had withdrawn my resignation and that I would raise my concerns. I believe that Alpna reported back to Prat and Ash about this.

Prat came to me looking panicky and politely requested me to work on a substantial multi-day task for D Loco. He sent an email about this with a copy to Deepak.

Deepak asked me a day or two later if I was doing this work. I said yes. He said I don’t know why Prat asked you to do this.[5]

16 August

I emailed Deepak asking for a response to my conversation with him on 10 August.

He replied saying he would come back to me.

I had still not been told whether I could stay on or how to raise my concerns.

18 August

I put down a brief summary of my concerns in writing. I tried to hand over the note to Deepak, He refused to take the note and told me to speak with Tara first. I said I had a call with Tara on 19 August.

Deepak told me to be careful about how I worded my complaint on the 2009 bid mistake cover-up.

Deepak suggested that I consider delaying raising my concerns by about 2 months.

Deepak also suggested I should take it easy and need not come in everyday.

19 August

I spoke to Tara. She told me that I could complete my contract working directly for her. She said I could also help Deepak. She said she did not want the shit to hit the fan in the next two months. She asked me if I had any other concerns. I say no.

It appeared Tara had spoken to Deepak since my conversation on 18 August.

20 August

I tried to give the note on my concerns to Deepak, He said I had told Tara I had no concerns.[6] I said she already knows about these.

He said something about my working with Tara and him and the possibility of another permanent position becoming available in the meantime.

Deepak again suggested that I could also raise my concerns a couple of months down the line. I refused and said I wanted to do this right.

Deepak told me Tara was wondering if I wanted to complete my contract as a consultant working from home. I refused and said I wanted to work full-time with an office at GE.

I insisted on handing over the note. Deepak refused to take the note and said I was with Transportation so I needed to contact them. I forced it on him eventually saying my contract was with GE India. Apparently, Deepak gave it unopened to Jamie who was in Delhi at that time.[7]

I also emailed the note to Tara Plimpton and Mrigank Sharma. I got no reply.

Jamie spoke with me about my note.[8]

23 August

I emailed a further note to Tara and Mrigank.

24 August

Tara replied and told me Anil Chaddha would be the point of contact for my concerns.

She said I should ask Deepak for help on moving to Gurgaon and that she would schedule a call to discuss what I could work on. She said I would be working directly for her. Tara specifically mentioned that I would be helping Deepak as well.

27 August

I asked Deepak about what I might be able to work on with him. He replied saying that I would be getting my assignments only from Tara and her team. Deepak told me on another occasion soon after that I would not be a part of GE India and that I would have no assignment to work on GE India matters.

I emailed Tara for time to discuss future assignments.[9]

30 August

I requested Deepak that I wanted to stay on in AIFACS in order to complete my contract.[10]

I emailed Anil Chaddha about taking my complaints forward. I added a note on the Vineet Sood issue.

Anil replied and scheduled time for 2 September.

2 September

I again requested Tara for time to discuss assignments.

2 September

I spoke with Anil Chaddha and Liz Hackett. I specifically asked Anil if he knew Prat and Ash and expressed concern that they should have no influence over the investigation.

3 September

I noticed that Alpna and many others including Prat, Ash, Gaurav, Praveena seemed to know about what I had told Anil. I believe that everyone in AIFACS knew.

6 and 7 September

I sent more information to Anil – the note on Yashdeep Sule.[11] I found that people in AIFACS seemed to have found out about this as well.

I emailed Anil and asked him if he had spoken to people. He did not reply.

I emailed again asking for time to speak to Anil.

I spoke with Anil and Liz. Anil assured me that he had not spoken with anyone yet and there could have been no leaks.[12]

I briefly mentioned my conversation with Radhika (about Praveena and Prat) on this call.

The very next day Praveena seemed to know that I had mentioned this conversation to Anil and Liz.

7 September

I received an email from Arvind Subramanian asking me to move to Gurgaon by end of day, 8 September.

People in AIFACS seemed to know that I had complained about the leaks. Some of them suddenly appeared polite, said hello and acted as if nothing was going on.

Prat attempted to greet and speak to me. I rebuffed him.

8 September

I came in and Ramesh was sitting in my office at AIFACS. I asked him to vacate. He asked me if I needed the room.

I emailed Arvind saying I did not want to move to Gurgaon. He replied and asked me to talk to Tara.

I emailed Deepak saying that I had a call with Tara on 9 September, but I was not going to move to Gurgaon. I asked Deepak what this implied for me. Deepak replied stating “the discussion with Tara should help clarify these points.”

9 September

I came in and Chandan Vijay was occupying my office. I asked him to vacate.

I spoke with Tara and told her that I did not want to move to Gurgaon. She insisted I needed to move there and that I should do that by Monday.[13] She said I seemed to be complaining about everyone including Arvind Subramanian having harassed me.

Tara told me I would be working under Deepak’s supervision.

I told Tara about the leaks. She simply brushed that aside. Tara mentioned some call on which Prat had publicly spoken about my compliance and harassment complaint. She told me that she could send Anil to Delhi to speak with me sometime next week. As an alternative she suggested Mona Dange. Tara set up a call for 10 September for me to tell her whether I wanted Anil to come to Delhi so that he could book tickets.[14] Tara said we could also discuss what work I could do.

I went home.

I emailed Brackett Denniston, the GE Corporate ombudsperson and Jeff Immelt about the 2009 bid mistake cover-up. I mentioned my harassment complaint as well. I was told that this would be investigated.

I emailed Tara and Deepak with detailed information about the leaks. I sent a separate email to Tara and Deepak about the role played by Deepak in helping Prat to get me to leave.[15]

I canceled my call with Tara because I needed time to think.[16] I sent an email saying I would take the next week off. I said I wanted to stay at AIFACS (or I would have to leave). I also said that I would make sure my concerns were investigated properly.

10 September

I received an email from Jamie Winget about some assignments for me. I had not been assigned any work since my resignation on 3 August. I told Jamie I was on a break and would get back to him upon my return to work.

Week of 13 September

I got a query from Ozell Freeman. I answered that from home.

20 September

I came in to work around noon. I spoke with Ashish. He asked me about my move to Gurgaon.

After lunch, Arvind came into my office with Geetanjali Shivdasani and handed me a notice terminating my contract with immediate effect. I was asked to hand over GE property and leave. I asked Arvind who had taken this decision. Arvind told me that it was a joint decision by Tara Plimpton, Deepak Adlakha, Prat Kumar, David Lobo, Arvind Subramanian and Anil Chaddha.

I called Deepak to ask him who took this decision and why but he refused to speak with me. He mentioned something about the emails I had been sending.

I told Arvind and Geetanjali that this was very unfair and that I had raised a harassment complaint which was still to be heard.

20 September

I reached home and sent Brackett Denniston, Tara Plimpton and Deepak Adlakha an email protesting the termination of my contract.

22 September

I received a call from Joydev, a lawyer at GE Capital

25 September

I received a reply from Brackett Denniston to my email dated 20 September 2010

[1] Prat’s targeting after 4 August did not affect me negatively on a psychological level.

[2] Deepak had continued to hold out the possibility of another position in GE and he told me in the latter part of July that he would speak to John Flannery about this after John returned from a vacation. I told Jamie that Deepak had been talking about another option within GE.

[3] There was a Dankuni pre-bid meeting on 5 August. I was not informed about that meeting.

[4] I told Jamie about this when he was in Delhi in August 2010.

[5] I worked on this for 3-4 days. This ended with a loud and angry argument between Prat and me. I believe Prat complained about this as well to some people. Deepak told me Prat also called him. Deepak asked me to stop working on D Loco. I said I myself did not want to work with Prat and would share what I had done with Jamie.

[6] Again Deepak had spoken with Tara sometime between my call with Tara on 19 August and my conversation with Deepak on 20 August.

[7] 3- 4 days later Deepak asked me for a copy of my note. I gave him printouts of both my notes dated 20 and 23 September 2010.

[8] During this conversation, I also mentioned the harassment over the 10-11 July weekend because of my Saturday morning email. Jamie and I also briefly talked about the 2009 bid mistake.

[9] This conversation did not take place until 9 September.

[10] Deepak had told me earlier that he had asked Arvind Subramanian to organize space at Gurgaon. I had not heard from Arvind.

[11] Deepak had earlier tried to discourage me from raising the Yashdeep Sule issue.

[12] I also asked Anil if I could speak with someone in Delhi face-to-face as talking on the phone was not very conducive. He insisted that my concerns needed to be handled through headquarters in Erie.

[13] On the call I did agree to move to Gurgaon. I had no other option.

[14] Anil had told me earlier on 2 September that he was travelling to India for a wedding.

[15] Deepak had started to avoid me since I formally raised my concerns. He was coming into AIFACS almost everyday but would avert his eyes if he saw me. At the same time he was interacting closely with Prat and Ash. On one occasion I insisted on speaking to him. I then told him that Deepak I think you have played a role.

[16] I also decided that I would not move to Gurgaon.

The letter below was sent by me to Mr. Alexander Dimitrief on April 11. 2011

Dear Mr. Dimitrief,

Forgery

4. The document I was shown by Mr. Eglash on 1 December 2010[2] (I call it Document X) was most certainly not the document I saw on 10 July. I made this very clear. Mr. Eglash asked me if I was sure. I answered: would I lie about something like this. Further, Document X did not in any way resemble an original. Let me also state that I was not shown an electronic record of Document X despite my request.

5. I asked Mr. Eglash during the same meeting right after being shown Document X that he needed to look at what the Government had on its file. He smiled at me and said “why should I?”

7. Your letter misquotes this and claims that I stated:

“given the time lapse and other circumstances, [you] would rather not state [the certificate shown to you during the interview was not the certificate you saw previously] with 100% certainty”.

The words in square brackets are GE’s.

12. I have described the events of 10 and 11 July 2010 in great detail in writing. Further, I have also detailed the conspiracy to cover up this forgery that was put into effect afterwards.

16. You also state in your letter that you are “troubled by the misleading tone of my communications with Indian Railways.” You add:

With respect, these statements appear to me to be totally irrelevant and an attempt to obfuscate the issue as part of a cover-up.

I hope this response sheds a clearer and more authentic light on the forgery issue.

Thank you,

Seema Sapra

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

General Electric whistle-blower (former counsel) fears for her life

GE Docs–GE tampered with Kazakhstan Railways customer certificate filed in Indian Loco tender

Like this:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Pages

Recent Posts

Archives

Blog Stats

Meta