NEW DELHI: The CBI squarely named arrested Commonwealth Games chief organizer Suresh Kalmadi as the "mastermind" in fixing and inflating costs of a timing, scoring and results contract awarded to a Swiss firm that caused a loss of Rs 95 crore.
In the first chargesheet it filed in a Games-related case on Friday, CBI countered Kalmadi's claim that the controversial contract awarded to a Swiss firm was cleared by an executive board and the sports ministry, maintaining the Pune MP was "the supreme authority in the Organising Committee having overriding powers".
Agency sources said they were tracing an elaborate conspiracy that began at the Commonwealth Youth Games organized by Kalmadi at his parliamentary constituency of Pune where event organizer Wizcraft was asked to facilitate an appearance by Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty.
A partner in the plan was a firm Gem International – now named as a conspirator along with Swiss Timing Omega and Kalmadi and his Organizing Committee associates. Gem forked out Rs 72 lakh for the event and Rs 18 lakh was allegedly paid to Shetty. Later, after it won the timing, scoring and results contract, Swiss Timing allegedly paid Rs 23 crore to Gem, seen to be an exercise in routing the money.
The agency said the buck stopped with Kalmadi as prime accused as he oversaw forgeries and tender conditions were tweaked to benefit Swiss Timing at his behest by his aides Lalit Bhanot and V K Verma, who were arrested in February.
Along with Kalmadi, Bhanot and Verma, the 60-page chargesheet on the Rs 141 crore contract names former OC treasurer M Jaychandran and five others. Two companies -- Swiss Timing Omega and AKR Constructions -- have been indicted.
The agency is likely to next file a chargesheet in the Queen Baton's Relay case involving allegedly illegal payments to British firm AM Cars and AM Films. Jaychandran was arrested in the case and is on bail with two other former OC officials. Kalmadi is likely to be main accused in this case as well.
The two private entities – Swiss Timing and AKR Constructions – have been chargesheeted for routing payments and conspiring with OC officials with the final sub-contractor carrying out the work awarded for a fraction of the deal.
The CBI court of judge Talwant Singh is due to take cognizance of the chargesheet on Monday. The agency has been helped by two former OC officials, one of whom V K Gautam was believed to be close to Kalmadi. He along with Sujit Panigraphi are among the main prosecution witnesses. The other important testimony is that of Rahul Bhatnagar, a senior official in the sports ministry.
Kalmadi and his associates decided to award the contract to Swiss Timing before a tender was floated and the terms were changed after its issuance to specifically ensure the firm won the deal. A much lower Rs 62 crore bid by Spanish firm MSL was rejected. Swiss Timing's bid was accepted despite a 2:2 split in the evaluation committee, investigation has revealed.
"They (the officials) had a pre-planned design to give contract to Swiss Timing, much before Expression of Interest and Request for Proposal (RPF) was issued and they had done forgeries, manipulations and machinations to give award to Switzerland based company."
Since it could not find direct evidence of money trail, the agency cited circumstantial and documentary evidence in a bid to nail him for cheating, forgery and other charges. It said that he had himself "manipulated the eligibility criteria for the TSR contract to favour Swiss Timing."
The agency based its chargesheet on the statement of around 70 witnesses and several documents including a forged contract and expression of interest and a hand-written note recovered from Kalmadi's house stating the TSR contract would go to Swiss Timing.
OC officials to be chargesheeted include Surjit Lal, A S V Prasad and three private persons – promoters of Faridabad-based Gem International A K Madan and Purushottam Arya and MD of Hyderabad based AKR Constructions A Krishna Reddy. CBI has charged all of them for cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy, use of forged documents and prevention of corruption act.
Reddy, Madan and Arya are on the run and CBI is looking for them armed with non-bailable warrants.
The two firms Swiss Timing and Gem conspired with OC officials. "They then conspired with A K Reddy of AKR Constructions and raised highly inflated and bogus invoices for Rs 11 crore for temporary cabling work for justifying the huge payment received from Swiss Timing," said the chargesheet.
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In the first chargesheet it filed in a Games-related case on Friday, CBI countered Kalmadi's claim that the controversial contract awarded to a Swiss firm was cleared by an executive board and the sports ministry, maintaining the Pune MP was "the supreme authority in the Organising Committee having overriding powers".
Agency sources said they were tracing an elaborate conspiracy that began at the Commonwealth Youth Games organized by Kalmadi at his parliamentary constituency of Pune where event organizer Wizcraft was asked to facilitate an appearance by Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty.
A partner in the plan was a firm Gem International – now named as a conspirator along with Swiss Timing Omega and Kalmadi and his Organizing Committee associates. Gem forked out Rs 72 lakh for the event and Rs 18 lakh was allegedly paid to Shetty. Later, after it won the timing, scoring and results contract, Swiss Timing allegedly paid Rs 23 crore to Gem, seen to be an exercise in routing the money.
The agency said the buck stopped with Kalmadi as prime accused as he oversaw forgeries and tender conditions were tweaked to benefit Swiss Timing at his behest by his aides Lalit Bhanot and V K Verma, who were arrested in February.
Along with Kalmadi, Bhanot and Verma, the 60-page chargesheet on the Rs 141 crore contract names former OC treasurer M Jaychandran and five others. Two companies -- Swiss Timing Omega and AKR Constructions -- have been indicted.
The agency is likely to next file a chargesheet in the Queen Baton's Relay case involving allegedly illegal payments to British firm AM Cars and AM Films. Jaychandran was arrested in the case and is on bail with two other former OC officials. Kalmadi is likely to be main accused in this case as well.
The two private entities – Swiss Timing and AKR Constructions – have been chargesheeted for routing payments and conspiring with OC officials with the final sub-contractor carrying out the work awarded for a fraction of the deal.
The CBI court of judge Talwant Singh is due to take cognizance of the chargesheet on Monday. The agency has been helped by two former OC officials, one of whom V K Gautam was believed to be close to Kalmadi. He along with Sujit Panigraphi are among the main prosecution witnesses. The other important testimony is that of Rahul Bhatnagar, a senior official in the sports ministry.
Kalmadi and his associates decided to award the contract to Swiss Timing before a tender was floated and the terms were changed after its issuance to specifically ensure the firm won the deal. A much lower Rs 62 crore bid by Spanish firm MSL was rejected. Swiss Timing's bid was accepted despite a 2:2 split in the evaluation committee, investigation has revealed.
"They (the officials) had a pre-planned design to give contract to Swiss Timing, much before Expression of Interest and Request for Proposal (RPF) was issued and they had done forgeries, manipulations and machinations to give award to Switzerland based company."
Since it could not find direct evidence of money trail, the agency cited circumstantial and documentary evidence in a bid to nail him for cheating, forgery and other charges. It said that he had himself "manipulated the eligibility criteria for the TSR contract to favour Swiss Timing."
The agency based its chargesheet on the statement of around 70 witnesses and several documents including a forged contract and expression of interest and a hand-written note recovered from Kalmadi's house stating the TSR contract would go to Swiss Timing.
OC officials to be chargesheeted include Surjit Lal, A S V Prasad and three private persons – promoters of Faridabad-based Gem International A K Madan and Purushottam Arya and MD of Hyderabad based AKR Constructions A Krishna Reddy. CBI has charged all of them for cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy, use of forged documents and prevention of corruption act.
Reddy, Madan and Arya are on the run and CBI is looking for them armed with non-bailable warrants.
The two firms Swiss Timing and Gem conspired with OC officials. "They then conspired with A K Reddy of AKR Constructions and raised highly inflated and bogus invoices for Rs 11 crore for temporary cabling work for justifying the huge payment received from Swiss Timing," said the chargesheet.
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