The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has seized property documents along with gold and diamond jewellery of substantial value that allegedly belonged to Mahesh Kumar, arrested on the allegation of paying a hefty bribe to a nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for securing a plum post on the Railway Board.
The documents and valuables were seized by the bureau’s sleuths from a “shady” place at Bhayander in Mumbai suburb on Tuesday after they raided various locations, including Kumar’s official residence located in the upper-crust dominated Altamount Road off Peddar Road near Malabar Hill in south Mumbai.
The CBI operation was based on a tip-off that some household members of Kumar removed the property related documents, bank passbooks and other valuables, including jewellery, from his residence soon after his arrest by the bureau in the bribery case.
The sleuths questioned members of Kumar’s family and also some local taxi drivers to track down the exact location where property documents and valuables were kept, to hide them from the authorities, sources said.
The CBI is assessing the value of the jewelleries recovered. Sources in the agency said prima facie it appeared to be of “substantial” if not “quite staggering.”Kumar (now suspended) was arrested by the agency in Mumbai on May 3 for allegedly paying Vijay Singla, son of the Railway Minister’s sister, Rs 90 lakh through Bangalore-based businessman N R Manjunath to secure him a plum post on the Railway Board.
He was recently promoted as Railway Board Member (Staff) and was allegedly making efforts to be posted Member (electrical).
A middleman and Singla’s close aide Sandeep Goyal, who also has been arrested in the case, had allegedly promised Kumar to secure the post of member (electrical) on Railway Board only in return for a payment of Rs 10 crore as a bribe.
In Delhi, Singla’s another close aide in the case Ajay Garg surrendered before a court. He was formally arrested by the CBI before the court remanded him in agency’s custody till May 9.
Special CBI Judge Swarna Kanta Sharma allowed the custodial interrogation of Garg on a plea by the CBI.
Garg was briefly interrogated by the CBI in the courtroom itself with the permission of the judge.
"Through media reports I came to know that I have been named an accused in the alleged bribery case. I am voluntarily surrendering myself in the court to cooperate with the CBI in the ongoing investigation," Garg, a multi-millionaire businessman from Chandigarh, told the court.
The court also remanded Singla, Manjunath and Goyal to the CBI custody till May 9 as the investigation agency submitted that their further interrogation in custody was required to ascertain the source of Rs 2 crore to be paid to Singla by Kumar.
The bureau, which collected documents from the Railway Ministry relating to elevation of Kumar, is likely to question Railway Board members, including its chairman, in connection with the case.
According to sources, the CBI intercepted over 1,000 calls with over 80 hours of conversations of suspects in the case before it swung into action and arrested Singla.
The intercepted phone conversations were about negotiations and bargaining Kumar’s promotion among the suspects.
The bureau, which is trying to ascertain the role of the Railway officials in the case, has plans to confront each of the accused arrested in the case with their conversations tapped and other documentary evidence to make them spill the beans, sources added.
All in the family
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is left with a lot of explaining to do on the family business front. The minister’s kin set up 10 companies, almost during the same period when Bansal rose in stature and portfolio. Here is the ‘all-in-the-family’ kin list of Bansal as Directors in the ten companies.
COMPANY DIRECTORS
JTL Infra Limited Vikram Bansal, Vijay Singla,
and others (both nephews)
Bansi Raunaq Energy Ltd Amit, Manish Bansal, others
(both sons)
Vibgyor Designs Pvt Ltd Vikram Bansal, others (nephew)
ISIS Packaging Pvt Ltd Manish (son), Shiana
(daughter-in-law) and Amit (son)
IVA Healthcare Pvt Ltd Manish (son), Madhu Bansal
(Bansal’s wife)
Theon Pharmaceutical Amit (son), Monika (daughter-
Pvt Ltd in-law), Manish (son) and wife.
Jagan Realtors Pvt Ltd Vijay Singla (nephew),
Madan Mohan Singla (nephew)
Mirage Infra Ltd Vijay Singla (nephew), Madan Mohan Singla (nephew)
Jagan Industries Ltd Vijay Singla (nephew)
Chetan Industries Ltd Madan Singla (nephew),
Vijay Singla (nephew) and others.
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