Arrested ex-Tripura minister remanded to police custody

Senior CPI(M) leader Badal Chowdhury, arrested in a corruption case, was remanded to police custody for four days on Monday by a local court.

Chowdhury, a CPI(M) central committee member who was the PWD minister during the Left Front regime, was arrested on October 30 from a private hospital where he was admitted.

He was taken to a police station from there and brought to a state-run hospital later on the same day.

After he was released from the hospital on November 8, he was presented before the District and Session Judge court that had remanded him to judicial custody till Monday.

The court ordered that Chowdhury should not be kept inside police lockup during interrogation considering his health condition.

Chowdhury's counsel, Purusottam Roy Barman said that the court also directed the investigating officer to undertake special arrangement for the former minister.

"If the facilities are not available in the police station, the investigation officer can interrogate him in the central correctional centre," Roy Barman said.

Chowdhury was accused of being involved in the Rs 638.40 crore PWD scam.

The irregularities took place as the former PWD minister flouted a number of rules in constructing 28 buildings, 46 bridges and 60 roads in 2008-09, state Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath had alleged.

An FIR was lodged by the Crime Investigation Department with the West Agartala Police Station on October 13 in which the agency accused Chowdhury, former chief engineer Sunil Bhowmik and former chief secretary Y P Singh of being involved in a financial scam of over Rs 600 crore in PWD projects between 2008 and 2009.

The three have been charged with fraud, corruption, criminal breach of trust and suppression of evidence.