Supreme Court refuses to hear bail plea of Lalit Bhanot

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to entertain the bail plea of former Secretary General of CWG Organising Committee Lalit Bhanot, arrested for his role in awarding a Games-related contract at inflated rates.

A bench of justices J M Panchal and H L Gokhale, however, allowed Bhanot to approach the appropriate court for relief and clarified the court would not get influenced by observations made by the Delhi High Court which had earlier rejected his bail plea.

The bench allowed Bhanot to withdraw his petition. Bhanot was arrested on February 23 this year along with former Director General of CWG OC V K Verma for awarding the contract for installing Timing, Scoring and Result systems for the Games to a Swiss firm, Swiss Timing, causing a loss of over Rs 90 crore to the public exchequer.

The Delhi High Court had on July 5 refused bail to Bhanot.

CWG OC Chairman Suresh Kalmadi's close aide, Bhanot was arrested along with Verma for striking a Rs 107 crore deal with a Swiss firm -- Swiss Timing Omega in procuring the Timing, Scoring and Result (TSR) System for the Commonwealth Games held last year.

Earlier, Special CBI Judge Talwant Singh had also dismissed Bhanot's bail plea.

In the first charge sheet filed in the TSR scam on May 20, CBI had named Kalmadi, Bhanot, Verma and eight others.

All the accused have been indicted for various offences, including those of criminal conspiracy under Section 120(B), cheating (Section 420), forgery (Section 468 & 471) of Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.