Almost two months after it registered an FIR in the “Railgate” bribery scandal, the CBI on Tuesday filed a chargesheet against 10 accused, but gave a clean chit to former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who was forced to resign in the wake of the scandal, saying it “did not find sufficient evidence to proceed against him”.
Mr Bansal, therefore, was not named in the chargesheet. The 10 accused named included the minister’s nephew Vijay Singla; suspended Railway Board member Mahesh Kumar; middlemen Sandeep Goyal, Samir Sandhir, Sushil Daga, Ajay Garg and Rahul Yadav; businessman Manjunath and his two aides P.V. Murali and Venugopal.
The two courier boys who delivered the bribe money were not named.
The chargesheet was filed before CBI special judge Swarna Kanta Sharma, who is likely to take cognisance of it on Wednesday.
Filing of the chargesheet dims the hopes of the accused to be released on bail anytime soon.
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It’s official: Sujatha is next foreign secretary
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, July 2
Putting all speculation at rest, India’s ambassador to Germany Sujatha Singh was named Tuesday as the next foreign secretary, succeeding Ranjan Mathai, whose term ends this month. Ms Singh, a 1976-batch IFS officer due to retire next July, will now get a two-year extension. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved her name after his recent Kashmir trip.
Many other names, notably of ambassador to China S. Jaishankar and MEA secretary (west) Sudhir Vyas, were doing the rounds. Mr Jaishankar was considered the PMO’s preferred choice.
Ms Singh will be the third woman foreign secretary, after Chokila Iyer and Nirupama Rao.