Trial in a Commonwealth Gamesrelated case, involving Suresh Kalmadi and nine others forallegedly causing a loss of over Rs 90 crore to the exchequer,commenced today before a Delhi court which recorded evidenceof a woman officer associated with the 2010 sporting event.
Besides sacked CWG Organising Committee (OC) chairmanKalmadi, other prominent persons who are facing trial includedformer OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot and OC's formerDirector General V K Verma.
Special CBI Judge Ravinder Kaur, who had paved the wayfor trial by framing charges for offences punishable under theIPC and Prevention of Corruption Act, recorded the testimonyof first CBI witness Ananda Swaroop, Director of Publicationin Communication in the 2010 CWG OC.
The recording of statement continued throughout the dayduring which Swaroop deposed about the expression of interest(EoI) which was uploaded on the OC's website regarding theprocurement of Timing, Scoring and Results (TSR) equipment.
Kalmadi and others are facing trial in a case relating toalleged "illegal" awarding of a contract to install TSR systemfor the CWG to Swiss Timing at inflated rates causing a lossof over Rs 90 crore to the exchequer.
During the probe into the case, Swaroop had told CBI thatshe had received a mail on March 21, 2009 from an official inthe office of OC secretary general for uploading the attacheddocuments relating to the EoI on the website.
The court, in its order on framing of charges, had alsoobserved that Swiss Timing was selected on a "nominationbasis" and false expression of interest was published to keepothers away and the request for proposal was made restrictive.
All the accused are facing trial in the case for chargesof criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating and other offencesentailing maximum punishment of life term.
The other accused, facing trial in the case, are OC's former Director General (Procurement) Surjit Lal, former JointDirector General (Sports) A S V Prasad and former Treasurer MJayachandran. They are no more associated with the sportingbody.
Apart from the six, promoters of two construction firms -P D Arya and A K Madan of Faridabad-based Gem Internationaland A K Reddy of Hyderabad-based AKR Constructions are alsoaccused in the case. AKR Constructions is also an accused inthe case.
The court had framed substantial charges of misusingofficial position against the six former OC officials, whowere public servants.
All the accused were charged under various sections ofthe IPC, including section 467 (forgery of a valuablesecurity), which entails life term as maximum punishment.
The court had framed substantive charge under section 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) (criminal misconduct by publicservants) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Kalmadi.
Kalmadi is also facing trial for offences under section120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 420 (cheating),467, 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating),471 (using asgenuine a forged document) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Besides these, Kalmadi and other accused have also beencharged for offences under sections 201 (causing disappearanceof evidence) and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishablewith imprisonment for life) of the IPC.
After framing of charges, all the accused had pleaded notguilty.