File photo of Lieutenant General (retired) Tejinder Singh.
Lieutenant General (retired) Tejinder Singh on Monday moved the Delhi High Court seeking bail, soon after the trial court rejected his plea for relief and he was arrested for allegedly offering Rs 14 crore bribe to then Army Chief General V K Singh for clearing a file pertaining to Tatra vehicles.
The bail will be heard by Justice Pratibha Rani on Tuesday.
The plea was mentioned before a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Manmohan which ordered its listing before a criminal bench of Justice Rani. However, the petition, filed through advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, was later sent to another court headed by Justice S Muralidhar who, in turn, said that it will be heard by Justice Rani tomorrow at 2.15 pm.
Earlier in the day, a special CBI court at Patiala House dismissed the bail application of Tejinder Singh, accused of offering Rs 14 crore bribe to VK Singh for clearing a file pertaining to procurement of 1,676 heavy mobility Tatra vehicles.
The trial court had also sent him to judicial custody till October 20 and fixed the case "for scrutiny of documents and arguments."
Lieutenant General Tejinder Singh had appeared today in the lower court following the summons issued against him in the case. The lower court had taken cognisance of the charge-sheet on August 28 after relying upon the statements of former Defence Minister AK Antony, VK Singh and other witnesses whose testimonies were recorded by the agency during the probe.
The CBI in its charge-sheet had alleged that in August-September 2010, the file pertaining to procurement of Tatra vehicles was pending before V K Singh, who is now a Minister of State of External Affairs and Minister of State in-charge of Department of Northeast Region.
The then Chief of Army Staff was not convinced with the total projected requirement of the vehicles and it appeared to him that the requirement has been inflated, the agency had said, adding VK Singh had sought fresh opinion on the issue from different quarters.
In its charge-sheet, the CBI had alleged that Tejinder Singh met VK Singh in his office in South Block on September 22, 2010, and during the meeting, he had offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore to the latter for clearing the file of Tatra vehicles by first week of October.