Sixty six-year-old Kalmadi and two former organizing committee’s joint director general (sports) A S V Prasad and deputy director general (logistics) Surjit Lal were arrested on Monday by the CBI in the case registered on November 29 last under various provisions of the IPC, relating to cheating and forgery, and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI sought 14 days of custodial interrogation of Kalmadi and two others from Special CBI court claiming that the accused were required to be confronted with each other in order to unearth the whole conspiracy in awarding of contract to M/s Swiss Timing Ltd and role played by them following the criminal conspiracy.
Special Judge Talwant Singh allowed the application of CBI but remanded the three accused in custodial interrogation only till May 4.
In its plea, CBI said, “The behaviour of the accused so far has remained evasive and non-cooperative and they are not revealing the true facts and circumstances of the criminal conspiracy which led to the award of the contract in a wrongful manner.”
The contention of the probe agency was, however, strongly opposed by Amit Desai, counsel for the accused, who submitted that the accused had always been available before it to cooperate in the probe. “His (Kalmadi’s) arrested has been mala fide and due to extraneous reasons. All the decisions regarding the purchase of all equipments during the mega sporting events held in Delhi in 2010 were taken by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs,” the counsel claimed. He also submitted that the CBI failed to give any justification for its arrest.
The CBI had already arrested then organizing committee’s director general V K Verma and secretary general Lalit Bhanot in the case relating to purchase of TSR allegedly at an exorbitant rates, causing wrongful loss of estimated Rs 95 crore to the exchequer.
According to it, the accused were “deeply involved and instrumental” in allotment of TSR contract to Swiss firm in a “preplanned and premeditated manner” to cause loss to the government.
Slipper hurled at Kalmadi
High drama preceded the production of Kalmadi in Delhi’s Patiala House courts complex as a man threw a slipper at him.
The man identified as Manoj Sharma, tried to hit the 66-year-old disgraced Congress leader with a slipper when the Pune MP was being taken to be produced in court of Special Judge in the afternoon. The ‘chappal’ fell short of the suspended Congress MP. Policemen accompanying Kalmadi and two other accused immediately pounced upon Sharma and took him Tilak Marg police station for questioning.
Sharma, who hailed from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, seemed mentally unstable.
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