New Delhi:
A Delhi court has allowed CBI to quiz former CWG Organising Committee officials T S Darbari and Sanjay Mahendroo for six days in its custody after the probe agency said it has recovered "voluminous incriminating" documents from their houses and CWG office revealing graft.
"Accused are required to be confronted with voluminous incriminating documents recovered from the residential premises of the accused and from the office of the Organising Committee (OC) of CWG, 2010," the agency said while seeking to interrogate them in custody.
The agency said custodial interrogation of the close aides of OC chief Suresh Kalmadi was required to unearth the alleged money trail to the tune of 1.4 lakh pounds relating to Queen's Baton Relay held in London last year.
Allowing the plea, Special CBI Judge A S Yadav sent the accused duo to CBI's cusotdy till November 22.
"Both the accused were arrested only yesterday. Their further custodial interrogation is required to unearth the conspiracy and the names of other possible co-accused," the court said.
The agency, in its application, said the accused, whose role in the offence was of serious nature, were "high-profile and well connected persons" and were not co-operating in the probe.
"In order to unearth the multi-crore rupees scam, the names of co-accused involved in the crime, use of defrauded money by the accused, modus operandi of the offence and their link in India and abroad are required to be ascertained, for which their custodial interrogation was required.
"The accused are high profile and well-connected persons and if left free at the stage of preliminary investigation, it is likely that they may tamper with the evidence and influence vital witnesses," the application said.
Detailing the role of the accused, CBI said they entered into a criminal conspiracy by abusing their official position and awarded work to M/s AM Car and Van Hire Limited on the basis of false and forged documents (emails) and thereby caused a huge loss to the government and corresponding illegal gain to the firm.
The counsel for the accused, however, opposed CBI's plea, saying Darbari, former OC Joint Director General, and Mahendroo, former OC Deputy Director General, have been co-operating and their premises have already been searched and nothing remains to be recovered.
Darbari told the court that "I did not take any decision. All the decisions regarding the tendering process were taken by the 13-member OC."
CBI had arrested Darbari and Mahendroo on Monday after it registered two cases in connection with contracts awarded to London-based A M Films and AM Car and Van Hire Limited at exorbitant rates.
The agency had conducted searches at four premises including the OC headquarters here.
The first case was registered by CBI under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act in relation to the award of contract to AM car and Van Hire Limited.
CBI has named Darbari, Mahendroo, OC Director Raj Singh, Director of transport firm Ashish Patel, and other unnamed persons under sections 468 (forgery of court records and public documents), 471 (using forged documents as genuine), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
The second case involves A M Films and the probe agency had named Patel, Mahendroo, Darbari and others under sections 420 (cheating), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
Considered to be close associates of Suresh Kalmadi, Darbari and Mahendroo were initially suspended in the wake of reports of the CWG scam and later sacked.
Darbari and Mahendroo are already facing charges of violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and have been questioned by Enforcement Directorate.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered its first case under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in CWG after British authorities referred to the Indian High Commission a matter regarding A M Films, a little-known company, to which a huge sum of money was transferred through the Royal Bank of Scotland.