Railgate: Bansal named as witness, nephew architect of scam

Former Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has been named as one of the key witnesses in the Rs 10 crore cash-for-post railway bribery case in which CBI said his nephew Vijay Singla is the 'main person' whose influence was to be used for getting a Railway Board Member appointed to a post seen as 'lucrative'.

Bansal has been named as the 39th prosecution witness in the case in which Singla, the then Member (Staff) of Railway Board Mahesh Kumar and eight others have been chargesheeted for the offence of criminal conspiracy under the IPC and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

'Moreover, he (Singla) was caught on the spot while accepting the bribe of Rs 90 lakhs from his office premises at Chandigarh. He was the main person whose influence was to be used for the appointment of Mahesh Kumar at his desired post of Member (Electrical),' the CBI charge sheet said.

CBI has alleged that Singla had demanded Rs 10 crores from Kumar for his appointment to the post of Member (Electrical) and it was decided between the accused that Rs five crore will be paid before the appointment and the rest will be paid after the job was done.

The first tranche of Rs 89.68 lakhs was given to Singla who was apprehended while accepting the money, it said.

CBI had filed charge sheet on May 2 against 10 accused -- Kumar, Singla, Managing Director of Bangalore-based G G Tronics India Pvt Limited Manjunath Narain Rao, middlemen Ajay Garg and Sandeep Goyal, Rahul Yadav, Samir Sandhir, Sushil Daga, C V Venugopal and M V Murali Krishan.

Barring Murali and Venugopal, CBI has arrested the eight accused named in its charge sheet.

Special CBI Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma today took cognisance of the CBI's charge sheet and issued summons to Murali and Venugopal for July 11. The judge also extended till July 11 the judicial custody of the eight arrested accused.

After taking cognisance of the charge sheet, the court supplied the copies and documents annexed to the final report to the eight arrested accused.