The CBI on Friday filed its chargesheet in the agency’s probe related to the result update system contract of the Commonwealth Games naming former chairman of the Organising Committee (OC) Suresh Kalmadi as a main accused. This was the CBI’s first chargehseet, filed in a Delhi court on Friday, related to the agency’ probe into the CWG cases.
The CBI, in its over 50-page chargesheet, accused Kalmadi as the key person with all the powers to take decisions regarding award of contracts. The agency in its chargesheet said the CBI probe has revealed that the accused OC officials, including Kalmadi, had allegedly conspired with the representatives of the private firm in Switzerland and contract (worth `141 crores) for the Time, Scoring and Result (TSR) system was awarded by wrongfully restricting and eliminating competition in a planned manner.
Besides Kalmadi, the agency named two companies and eight persons, including OC former secretary-general Lalit Bhanot and former director-general V.K. Verma as accused and sought their prosecution under various provisions of the IPC dealing with criminal conspiracy, forging documents and using fake documents as genuine and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Others named in the CBI chargesheet are OC director-general (procurement) Surjit Lal, joint director-general (sports) A.S.V Prasad, treasurer M. Jayachandran, managing director A.K. Reddy of Hyderabad-based AKR Constructions and promoters A.K. Madan and P.D. Arya of a Faridabad-based firm Gem International.
The chargesheet said, “Kalmadi is the main accused as he was the person with all supreme powers. He had the supreme over-riding powers in the OC”. Kalmadi, however, filed an application before the court shortly before the CBI filed its 50-page chargesheet against him and 10 others, including two firms, for their role in the award to a Swiss firm to install TSR system at an exorbitant cost.
Special CBI Judge Talwant Singh, before whom the CBI filed the chargesheet, deferred the order on his bail plea by five days after taking into consideration Kalmadi’s plea to argue his case on new grounds. The court took the chargesheet into record and will consider the issue of cognisance on it on May 23. The court also allowed the Enforcement Directorate to interrogate Kalmadi in connection with a money laundering case registered by it against him.