RailEnquiry

Three of the accused in the Rs. 10-crore railway bribery case in which former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla was also arrested were on Monday granted bail by a Delhi court.Special CBI judge Swarana Kanta Sharma allowed the pleas of accused Rahul Yadav, Samir Sandhir and Sushil Daga and granted them bail on a personal bond of Rs. five lakh with two sureties each of the like amount despite the CBI opposing it.These three accused, who were presently in judicial custody along with others, were chargesheeted by the CBI which had alleged that Yadav and Sandhir were involved in the arrangement of bribe amount to be delivered to Singla.The agency had said that Daga was associated with the work of arranging, transporting and payment of bribe money for another accused and then member (staff) of railway board Mahesh Kumar's desired posting and he had also contributed about Rs. 4.68 lakh on his part in it.Out of the 10 accused, who were chargesheeted by the CBI, alleged middleman Ajay Garg, who has been accused of being instrumental in fixing the bribe amount for getting a favourable post for Kumar, was granted bail by the court on July 8.Besides Singla, Kumar and Garg, the other accused chargesheeted by the CBI are MD of Bangalore-based GG Tronics India Pvt Ltd Narayan Rao Manjunath, alleged middleman Sandeep Goyal, Rahul Yadav, Samir Sandhir, Sushil Daga, MV Murali Krishan and CV Venugopal.

CBI, in its charge sheet filed on July 2, has alleged that Singla had demanded Rs. 10 crore from Mahesh Kumar for his appointment as member (electrical).

The court on July 12 had dismissed the bail plea of seven accused in the case, saying they can tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses, if released on bail.

CBI had said in the chargesheet it was decided between the accused that Rs. five crore would be paid before the appointment and rest of the money would be paid after the job was done.

The first tranche of Rs. 89.68 lakh was given to Singla who was apprehended while accepting the money, it had said.

All the 10 accused have been chargesheeted for the offence of criminal conspiracy under the IPC and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Former Union railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who resigned from the Union Cabinet in the wake of the scandal, has been named as one of the key witnesses in the case while his nephew Singla has been termed as the "main person" whose influence was to be allegedly used for getting Kumar appointed to the post, seen as "lucrative".