Congress leader and former MLC Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and his son were arrested by the CBI on Tuesday in connection with the Adarsh Housing Society scam. Bombay high court’s CBI retainer Mandar Goswami has also been arrested for allegedly accepting illegal gratification of `1.25 crore from the duo to “weaken the case” against them. A sessions court has remanded all three of them to police custody till March 16.
The CBI has alleged that the three were involved in the transfer of the money with one J.K. Jagiasi, a tax consultant who was earlier arrested by the CBI on February 20 in a case registered against him for demanding a `1-crore bribe from Amod Sharma, former director of Air India. During his interrogation, Jagiasi told the CBI that he had informed the Gidwanis to ask Goswami to help them weaken the case against them upon payment of the bribe. The CBI has now registered a new case against him.
According to the CBI, Jagiasi said that the `1.25 crore was deposited partly in his account and partly in accounts of his family members. Subsequently, he delivered `25 lakh to Goswami.
Counsel for the CBI Izaz Khan alleged that the whole act was a deep-rooted criminal conspiracy and that several more persons have been involved in the case. The CBI is yet to unearth the whole conspiracy and the chain of transfer of the bribe amount from one person to another, which is why the custody of the accused was required, he said.
The accused will now be confronted with all the documents and call records that the CBI has collected during its investigation. Moreover, the agency is yet to recover five petty cash books, the blue slips of which were recovered from Jagiasi’s office, and which show that there were four cash transactions between the accused.
Opposing Goswami’s police custody, defence counsel Ashok Mundergi argued that Goswami had recently been appointed as a senior prosecutor in the Adarsh scam case, and was not acquainted with Gidwani.