The CBI on Thursday questioned sacked Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee (OC) chief Suresh Kalmadi in connection with the alleged irregularities in the Rs 71.82-crore contract given to the Event Knowledge Services (EKS), a company registered in Mauritius.
The probe agency quizzed Kalmadi for a little over two hours regarding the OC meetings in the run-up to appointing EKS as a vendor for CWG 2010.
The CBI has already examined the minutes of the OC meetings in 2008. It is alleged that the minutes were fabricated to award the contract to the EKS.
The irregularities in awarding the contract for games workforce, planning, project, venue development, facilitation support and risk management services were the main focus of Kalmadi’s questioning.
The CBI has alleged that the CWG OC engaged in malpractices at various levels in awarding the contracts, thus benefiting the EKS.
The Shunglu Committee report on the CWG 2010 has said that the EKS was awarded the contract on a single source basis on the recommendation of Mike Hooper, CEO of Commonwealth Games Federation.
“The CEO of the CGF made every effort to ensure award of these contracts to the EKS. He not only personally testified the credentials of the firm, but also justified the reasonableness of rates... and also attended the Technical Evaluation Committee meetings,” it said.
“The fabrication of the minutes of two meetings (to decide on contracts) purportedly held on January 30, 2008, and March 10, 2008, was strongly suggestive of collusion between the OC top management, CGF functionary and EKS for accomplishing its pre-meditated objective,” the report said further.