Jamshedpur, April 27: Charles Borromeo, gold medalist at the 1982 Asian Games and Padma Shri, resigned as head of Tata Steel sports department on Wednesday over alleged irregularities in the tendering process for laying of the Rs 4.40 crore worth synthetic field track at the JRD Tata Sports Complex.
Charles Borromeo didn�t turn up at his office on Wednesday and was unavailable for comment.
The former athlete decided to put in his papers following a raid by seven members of the Tata Steel vigilance department at his official chamber at the JRD Tata Sports Complex late Tuesday evening.
The vigilance team had probed the former athlete for almost an hour to know about the tender process for the track and also seized his laptop and some documents. They also checked Borromeo�s drawer and the files in his office.
Earlier, the team members also visited Borromeo�s office on Monday.
The 58-year-old Borromeo, whose superannuation was due in November, won the 800 m gold at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi and also went on the represent the country in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Sources revealed that the company�s vigilance department was probing about the alleged corruption in the tendering process for laying the track. Most of the materials used for laying the track were brought from USA, Germany and Portugal. Advance Development Sports, a New Delhi based company, and STI Group of Malaysia coordinated in laying the track at the sports complex.
The 400-meter synthetic track at JRD Tata Sports Complex was inaugurated on October 7, 2015 by the Director General of Sports Authority of India (SAI) Injeti Srinivas in the presence of former long-jump ace Anju Bobby George and Tata Steel MD TV Narendran.
Borromeo later joined Tata Steel as sports assistant in 1979 and participated in a number of track and field meets.
In 1982 he rose to the limelight. He topped the six-nation Athletic Meet in Mumbai, winning the Inter-State Championship at Kozhikode and also won the gold at the Pakistan National Games at Peshawar.
He won a bronze at the Peking International Games in China and toured Germany representing the Indian athletic team.
In 1984 Tata honored him as the Best Sportsman. Borromeo later represented India at a number of track and field meets around the world, including Japan and China, where he again won gold medals. He represented India at the 1984 Summer Olympics at Los Angeles.
He was eliminated in the first round after finishing fifth with a timing of 1:51.52.
He was awarded the Arjuna Award in 1982 and the Padma Shri in 1984.
