Goa Police seek narco tests on Kamat, Alemao in graft case

Goa Police Crime Branch has sought to conduct narco-analysis test on former chief minister Digambar Kamat and the then PWD minister Churchill Alemao in the Louis Berger bribery case, an official said on Wednesday.

The state police have sought permission for the tests from the state home department. With the two political leaders, police also want former government official Anand Wachasundar to be subjected to narco-analysis test, the official said.

The lie-detector test is proposed at the central government forensic facility in Hyderabad, said a Crime Branch official who is part of the team investigating the scam.

"The accused are resisting questioning. The narco tests will help us build a more solid case of a corelation between the three accused," the official said, requesting anonymity.

The official said a narco test would also help locate a file, currently missing, which is crucial to the investigation.

Kamat, Alemao and a former government official have been accused of accepting $976,630 (or about Rs.4.40 crore at the then ratio of $1 to Rs.45) in bribe in 2010 from officials of US-based Louis Berger consultancy firm which sought to secure implementation rights for a multi-billion-dollar water and sewerage project in Goa.

The project worth Rs.1,031 crore was funded by Japan International Co-Operation Agency and was cleared in 2010 by the Congress-led coalition government.

Third accused Anand Wachasundar, who is under arrest, is a former director of the JICA project.

Police have already named in its charge sheet Alemao, Wachasundar, James McClung (former Asia head of Louis Berger), Satyakam Mahanty (former India head of Louis Berger), Richand Soni (alleged hawala operator) and Arthur D'silva (Digambar Kamat's aide) as accused. Kamat has been listed as a suspect.

The accused were booked under sections 120-B and 201 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 7, 8, 9 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.