Supreme Court protects ex-Noida chief engineer Yadav Singh from arrest by CBI in corruption case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday protected former Noida Authority chief engineer Yadav Singh from arrest by the CBI in a corruption case in which he allegedly executed 1,280 maintenance contracts worth Rs 954 crore in eight days in December 2011.

A bench comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prasant Kumar Mishra took note of the submissions of senior advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Singh, that a bailable warrant has been issued against the accused after the central probe agency filed a supplementary charge sheet against him in the case.

The bench has now posted the plea for hearing after four weeks.

The senior lawyer said the top court had granted him bail following his over three year incarceration in the case and he now apprehends fresh arrest in the wake of the filing of the fresh supplementary charge sheet.

“There shall be no coercive action against the petitioner,” the bench said while issuing notice to the CBI on Singh's fresh plea for bail.

The top court had granted Yadav Singh bail on October 1, 2019.

“Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we deem it appropriate to enlarge the petitioner on bail, subject to the terms and conditions to be imposed by the trial court. However, since Tushar Mehta, solicitor general, has an apprehension that if let out on bail, evidence/witnesses may be tampered with, it will be open for the respondent to apply for cancellation...,” the top court had said in 2019.

On October 25, 2019, the top court had granted bail to Yadav Singh in a separate and consequential money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate.

In 2015, the ED had slapped money laundering charges against Singh, who was engineer-in-chief of the Noida Authority, Greater Noida Authority and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, on the basis of an FIR lodged by the CBI.

Earlier, the Income Tax department had said the raid in November 2014 had revealed that Singh's assets were hugely disproportionate to his income, following which he was suspended by the then Uttar Pradesh government.

In July 2015, the Allahabad High Court had directed the CBI to investigate the case stating that the allegations were most serious.