The CBI on Saturday booked Lt. Gen. Tejinder Singh (retd) for allegedly making a bribe offer to former Army Chief General V.K. Singh to clear a tranche of 1,676 high mobility Tatra vehicles for the Indian Army.
According to sources, immediately after registering the case under Section 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, CBI sleuths carried out searches at the premises of Vectra chairman Ravinder Rishi, also a director in Tatra Sipox-UK which supplied all-terrain trucks to the state-owned Bharat Earth Movers Limited for supply to the Army, and Lt. Gen. Tejinder Singh. CBI officials conducted searches at seven locations in Delhi, Noida and Mumbai.
“The CBI recovered a large number of incriminating documents and `98 lakh in cash during searches. Documents are now being scrutinised,” sources said. After registering the case, CBI sleuths also questioned Lt. Gen. Tejinder Singh, who has been accused in the FIR, at CBI headquarters here. The agency’s move comes after a nearly six-month preliminary enquiry in which it gathered enough prima facie evidence to register a case against Lt. Gen. Singh.
After getting a formal complaint from the then Army Chief, CBI had registered a PE in April this year. Gen. V.K Singh had alleged that Lt. Gen. Singh offered him a bribe of `14 crore, a matter he had reported to defence minister A.K. Antony, to clear the purchase of 1,676 Tatra trucks in September 2010. Lt. Gen. Singh had refuted the allegations and also slapped a defamation case against Gen. Singh.
Scrutiny of the “record of discussion (RD)”, in which Lt. Gen. Singh alleged meeting the then Army Chief (their conversation was recorded), also established that the accused had made an offer of `14 crore to Gen. V.K. Singh, sources said. The RD regarding the bribe-offer made on September 22, 2010, was provided by Gen. V.K. Singh to the CBI.
“As part of its investigations under the PE, CBI sleuths also probed the alleged relationship Tejin-der Singh enjoyed with the Vectra group which purportedly prompted him to make the offer to the then Army Chief. The role of Tejinder Singh is already under the scanner of the CBI in another case being probed by the agency,” sources said. The agency is also probing Lt. Gen. Singh’s links with a Korean company. The CBI probe has also revealed that the retired Army officer had reportedly visited the then Army Chief’s office in South Block on September 22, 2010.