CBI arrests two more in Commonwealth Games scam

NEW DELHI: CBI has arrested Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee (OC) Additional Director-General (finance) KUK Reddy and Praveen Bakshi, Director of private firm ESA JV, in its attempts to trace bribes paid for contracts secured for the Games.

CBI had last Friday raided the residences of Reddy and four other CWG officials as part of its probe into what has come to be known as the overlays scam. Residential premises of two private players had also been searched as part of the exercise. The scam, worth Rs 685 crore, is regarding contracts for supply of tents, marquees, pre-fabricated units, portable toilets, containers, security fences, furniture, public display LED boards, floor finishes, material handling equipment, generator sets, cabling, UPS, air-conditioners, lighting, civil construction, athletic exercise equipment and grandstands, for various CWG venues.

CBI believes that huge bribes were paid to bag the contracts.

Besides Reddy, the residences of AK Saxena, RP Gupta, Surjeet Lal and NK Jain, all senior functionaries of the CWG Organising Committee, were raided last Friday.

The CWG functionaries, according to CBI sources, are suspected recipients of kickbacks paid by firms that had secured the overlays contracts in the run-up to the Games. The raids showed that the investigating agency was hot on the bribe money trail.

CBI had earlier this month arrested Shekhar Deorukhkar, OSD to the sacked CWG Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi.