MUMBAI: Former Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat on Tuesday failed to appear before the Goa Police’s Crime Branch (CB) in connection with the Louis Berger bribery case. He is likely to visit the Crime Branch on Wednesday.
Expanding its investigation in the case, the CB on Tuesday morning had issued summons to Kamat asking him to appear by 4 pm. The Congress leader, though, had not reached the CB office till Tuesday evening. The CB, however, quizzed Kamat’s former Cabinet colleague Churchill Alemao in the same case. However, they refused to disclose what Alemao had told them.
A Congress source said that Kamat was busy preparing the ground for securing anticipatory bail in case the police decided to arrest him. The police had served him the summons through the Assembly Speaker as the legislative session is under way. They have received his signature on the summons. However, Kamat has claimed that he had not yet received it. Kamat came on the CB’s radar after Union Defence Minister and former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar had hinted at the possible involvement of the Congress leader and Alemao in the case, without taking their names.
The US-based infrastructure giant has revealed that it had paid a bribe of ` 6 crore to a minister in Goa to clear its water project in the state. Alemao, the then PWD Minister, was in-charge of the project which was cleared in 2010.
Parrikar had argued that the project could not have been cleared without the Finance Minister’s consent. Kamat was holding the Finance portfolio too at the time.