‘No allegation of CWG money trail’

NEW DELHI: Granting bail to Suresh Kalmadi on Thursday , the Delhi high court said even a day-to-day trial would take long and there was no risk of the former CWG Organizing Committee (OC) chief threatening witnesses , as feared by CBI.

Justice Mukta Gupta noted that statements of witnesses were recorded by CBI when Kalmadi and co-accused V K Verma (former director-general of the OC) were still at large.

“Thus, it is apparent that the witnesses were harassed and threatened only till they were working under the petitioners. Thereafter , there was no influence on the witnesses and they made their statements fearlessly before the CBI,” the judge observed.

“There is no allegation of money trail. There is no evidence of petitioners threatening the witnesses or interfering with evidence during investigation or trial. There is no allegation that any other FIR has been registered against the petitioners ,” she said , granting bail to Kalmadi andVerma on bailbondof Rs5 lakh each and two sureties of the same amount.

The court noted that since the chargesheet was filed in this particular case in May last year , two supplementary chargesheets with a list of witnesses and documents have been filed. The lengthy documentary evidence was then convertedintoelectronic form which took a lot of time. Finally , though the trial court directed that trial be conducted on a day-to-day basis , in the main chargesheet itself, 49 witnesses were cited and trial was likely to be time-consuming , the high court added.

The court directed Kalmadi and Verma not to leave the country without prior permission of thetrialcourt. Verma was arrested by CBI on February 23, 2011 and Kalmadi on April 25 for awarding the contract for a timing , scoring and result system to a Swiss firm , causing a loss of around Rs 90 crore to the state exchequer. Seven others are also accused in the case. CBI,in itschargesheet filed in May 2011, described Kalmadi as main accused in the case.