CBI steps up probe, likely to question Bansal today

The investigating agency while stepping up probe in Railgate has asked Rail Board officials to join probe

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With Pawan Kumar Bansal’s resignation as the minister of railways finally in, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is set to step up its probe into the Railway Board bribery scam. In fact, it is likely to question Bansal as early as tomorrow.

CBI has also sent notices to senior officials in the Railway Board, “to join the investigation process”. The line of inquiry will be around the people involved in the promotion of Mahesh Kumar, member (staff) in the Board till he was arrested last week, prime accused in the alleged bribery case. While CBI hasn’t disclosed if it would initiate inquiries into related matters such as the award of rail contracts and other board member appointments, it is learnt the agency has gathered evidence in this regard.

“As of now, we are concentrating on the bribery allegation only. For any other matter, a separate inquiry will be conducted,” a senior CBI official said. The agency is also examining around 1,000 telephone call records of four of those charged in the case — of Bansal’s close aide and nephew, Vijay Singla, of Mahesh Kumar, and alleged middlemen Narayan Rao Manjunath and Sandeep Goyal.

All the nine accused, save one, have been arrested and sent to judicial custody till May 20. CBI is also probing how the bribe money was routed, amid speculation that it was through the ‘hawala’ route by Manjunath.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) might get involved, if money was laundered in the process of bribery. It could probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

CBI says Kumar had agreed to obtain Rs 2 crore as illegal gratification from Manjunath and other businessmen dealing with the Railways. CBI says Kumar paid this money as a bribe to Singla’s associates, in return for being posted as the Board’s member (electrical), a supposedly more ‘lucrative’ job. CBI had laid a trap and caught Singla’s and Kumar’s associates red-handed in Chandigarh, with bribe money of Rs 90 lakh.