Title - 3 accused question Bansal being made a witness in bribery case

NEW DELHI: CBI's move to make Pawan Bansal a witness in the railway "cash-for-post" scam ran into a strong legal challenge on Tuesday, with three of the accused in the case alleging that the former railway minister, who should have been made an accused, was set free."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? They (CBI) are implicating these poor persons (Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir and Sushil Daga) and the person who should have been made accused is set free," counsel for Yadav, Sandhi and Daga, all accused in the case, told the special CBI court.

After hearing the arguments, the court fixed July 12 for pronouncing its order on the bail pleas of Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla and five others. Special CBI judge Swarana Kanta Sharma, who was scheduled to give her order on Tuesday on the bail applications of Singla, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir and Sushil Daga, deferred it for July 12. The court also reserved order for the same day on bail pleas of businessman Sandeep Goyal and MD of Bangalore-based G G Tronics India Pvt Ltd Narayan Rao Manjunath.

Counsel appearing for Manjunath claimed that his client was falsely implicated and CBI had claimed that a part of the alleged bribe amount was procured by the accused through hawala transactions but there was no proof to substantiate it.

Singla's counsel had said that the alleged bribe money recovered by CBI was part of a business transaction. He had also said that CBI was relying on intercepted telephonic conversations but since the same was procured illegally, they could not be relied upon to show that the money recovered from him was illegal gratification. CBI rebutted his argument saying the conversations were not intercepted illegally.

The CBI, in its chargesheet filed on July 2 against 10 accused, including Singla, has made Bansal a prosecution witness. The CBI, however, opposed their bail pleas saying they were part of the conspiracy and would influence prosecution witnesses if released.

The court had on Monday granted bail to alleged middleman Ajay Garg, accused of being instrumental in fixing the bribe amount for getting a favourable post for the then member (staff) of railway board Mahesh Kumar who is also an accused in the case.

The court had on July 4 taken cognizance of CBI's chargesheet in which the agency alleged that Singla had demanded Rs 10 crore from Kumar for his appointment to the post of member (electrical) and it was decided between the accused that Rs 5 crore would be paid before the appointment and the rest after the job was done.