New Delhi, Dec 7 (PTI) The CBI has booked three senior scientists of the Gandhinagar-based Institute for Plasma Research for allegedly causing loss to the institute by purchasing faulty superconductor material, officials said Wednesday.

The agency has booked the scientists -- former additional director Subrata Pradhan, Ananya Kundu and Prosenjit Santra -- along with former accounts officer Hradesh Kumar Sharma for alleged misrepresentation of facts, cheating and abuse of their official positions, they said.

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It is alleged that Pradhan had raised indents for procurement of niobium tin, a superconductor material, strands on behalf of the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) during the period 2012-2015 through two purchased orders and one supply agreement.

The complaint has flagged several irregularities like quality of the material supplied and process adopted, which resulted in the loss to the exchequer, they said.

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The Enforcement Directorate had alerted the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) about a complaint received by it in this regard in 2016 based on which an internal investigation was conducted by the institute.

The internal enquiry flagged several irregularities which were referred to the CBI for probe, they said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)