‘Why wasn’t Bansal named as accused?’
During arguments on bail pleas of three accused in the `10 crore cash-for-post railway bribery scam, their lawyers, questioning CBI’s decision to make former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal a witness in the case, told a Delhi court that the person who should have been made accused has been set free.
During arguments on the bail pleas of arrested accused Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir and Sushil Daga, their lawyer told the court that the CBI is “implicating” them and they were not involved in the “principal conspiracy” in the case.
“The day when you (CBI) made Mr Bansal as a witness in this case, this court should have discharged all the accused. In which direction the investigation is going on?,” advocate S.K. Sharma told Special CBI Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma who reserved the order on their bail plea for July 9. The CBI, in its chargesheet filed on July 2 against 10 accused, including Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla, has made the former Union railway minister as a prosecution witness.
During the hearing, the defence counsel argued that these three accused are in custody for over two months and they were not involved in the conspiracy for appointment of then member (staff) of Railway Board Mahesh Kumar, the key accused in the case, to the post of member (electrical).
The CBI, however, opposed their plea saying they were part of the entire conspiracy and would influence the prosecution witnesses if released on bail.
Meanwhile, the court asked the agency as to why the two chargesheeted accused, C.V. Venugopal and M.V. Murali Krishan, were not arrested during the probe while their alleged role was similar to that of Yadav, Sandir and Daga, who have been in custody for over two months.
The court had, on July 4, taken cognisance of CBI’s chargesheet in which the agency has alleged that Singla had demanded `10 crores from Kumar for his appointment to the post of member (electrical) and it was decided between the accused that `five crore will be paid before the appointment and the rest will be paid after the job was done.
The first tranche of `89.68 lakhs was allegedly given to Singla who was apprehended in Chandigarh while accepting the money, it has said.
The CBI had filed its charge sheet against 10 accused — Kumar, Singla, Managing Director of Bangalore-based G G Tronics India Pvt Limited Manjunath Narain Rao, middlemen Garg and Sandeep Goyal, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir, Sushil Daga, C V Venugopal and M V Murali Krishan.
ENDS
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