Syndicate Bank bribery case: Court to hear arguments on Jan 11

A Delhi court has fixed January 11 for hearing the arguments on framing of charges in an alleged graft case in which CBI has chargesheeted Syndicate Bank's sacked CMD Sudhir Kumar Jain, Bhushan Steel Ltd Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Neeraj Singal and four others.
Special CBI Judge Gurdeep Singh posted the matter for next month after advocates appearing for the accused submitted that they need four weeks time to scrutinise voluminous documents supplied to them by the agency along with the charge sheet.
"Put up for scrutiny of documents/arguments on charge on January 11, 2016," the court said.
The court had earlier taken cognisance of CBI charge sheet filed against them for alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under various provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Besides Jain and Singhal, the other accused chargesheeted by the CBI in the case are Vineet Godha, Puneet Godha, Vijay Pahuja and Pankaj Tiwari.
The court had in September last year granted bail to all the accused, including Jain and Singhal, after CBI had failed to file the charge sheet against them within the stipulated period of 60 days.

In its charge sheet, the agency has said that service of Jain was terminated by the government and thus no sanction for his prosecution was required.
Besides Jain and Singhal, CBI had earlier arrested Arun Aggarwal, Puneet Godha, Vineet Godha, Pankaj Tiwari, Vijay Pahuja and Purushottam Lal Totlani in connection with the case.

In its charge sheet, CBI said nothing incriminating has come on record against Arun Aggarwal, CFO of Bhushan Steel and Power Ltd, and Totlani and therefore they were not charge sheeted.
All the accused have denied the allegations against them.
CBI had registered two separate corruption cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy.
In August last year, CBI had arrested some of the accused in connection with the case and claimed to have recovered Rs 21 lakh in cash from Jain's residence besides gold worth Rs 1.68 crore and fixed deposit documents of up to Rs 63 lakh.

The agency has filed two cases against Jain, accusing him of receiving a bribe of Rs 50 lakh through conduits and abusing his official position to enhance the credit limits of some companies in violation of laid down procedures.