Railway bribery scam: Court to decide on bail pleas of 5 accused on 12 July

New Delhi: A Delhi court today fixed 12 July for pronouncing its order on the bail pleas of former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla and five others, arrested for their alleged involvement in the Rs 10 crore cash-for-post railway bribery scam. Special CBI Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma, who was scheduled to give her order today on the bail applications of accused Singla, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir and Sushil Daga, deferred it for 12 July. The court also reserved order for the same day on bail pleas of businessman Sandeep Goyal and MD of Bangalore-based GG Tronics India Pvt Ltd Narayan Rao Manjunath. Counsel appearing for Manjunath claimed that his client has been falsely implicated and CBI has claimed that a part of the alleged bribe amount was procured by the accused through hawala transactions but there is no proof to substantiate it. [caption id=“attachment_942773” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Bansal is presently a proseucution witness in the case. PTI[/caption] Singla’s counsel had said that the alleged bribe money recovered by CBI was part of a business transaction. He had also said that CBI is relying on some intercepted telephonic conversations but since the same have been procured illegally, they cannot be relied upon to show that the money recovered from him was an illegal gratification. CBI rebutted his argument saying the conversations have not been intercepted illegally. During arguments on the bail pleas of Yadav, Sandhir and Daga, their lawyer had said CBI is falsely implicating them and they were not involved in the “principal conspiracy” in the case. The counsel had questioned the CBI’s move of making Bansal a prosecution witness in the case saying that the person who should have been made an accused has been set free. “The day when you (CBI) made Mr Bansal as a witness in this case, this court should have discharged all the accused. In which direction the investigation is going on? “They (CBI) are implicating these poor persons (Yadav, Sandhir and Daga) and the person who should have been made accused is set free,” he had said. The CBI, in its charge sheet filed on 2 July against 10 accused, including Singla, has made the former Union Railway Minister a prosecution witness. The CBI, however, had opposed their pleas saying they were part of the entire conspiracy and would influence the prosecution witnesses if released on bail. The court had yesterday granted bail to alleged middleman Ajay Garg, accused of being instrumental in fixing the bribe amount for getting a favourable post for the then Member (Staff) of Railway Board Mahesh Kumar who is also an accused in the case. The court released Garg on bail saying that at this stage it was not clear whether he would have benefited in case accused Mahesh Kumar would have got the posting of his choice. The court had on July 4 taken cognisance of CBI’s charge sheet in which the agency has alleged that Singla had demanded Rs 10 crore 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 allegedly given to Singla who was apprehended in Chandigarh while accepting the money, it has said. CBI had filed its charge sheet against 10 accused – Kumar, Singla, Manjunath, Garg, Goyal, Yadav, Sandhir, Daga, CV Venugopal and MV Murali Krishan. Venugopal and Krishnan were not arrested by the CBI during the investigation. PTI