Syndicate Bank bribery case: Court to hear matter on December 3

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court today fixed December 3 for hearing an alleged corruption case in which the CBI has chargesheeted Syndicate Bank's sacked CMD Sudhir Kumar Jain, Bhushan Steel Ltd (BSL) Vice Chairman and Managing Director Neeraj Singal and four others.

These accused appeared before the court in pursuance to the summons issued against them and the CBI supplied the copy of charge sheet and documents filed along with it to them after which Special Judge Gurdeep Singh posted the matter for scrutiny of documents.

The court had earlier taken cognisance of CBI charge sheet filed against them for alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under various provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Besides Jain and Singhal, the other accused chargesheeted by the CBI in the case are Vineet Godha, Puneet Godha, Vijay Pahuja and Pankaj Tiwari.

In its charge sheet, CBI has said that service of Jain was terminated by the government and thus no sanction for his prosecution was required.

The court had in September last year granted bail to all the accused, including Jain and Singhal, after CBI had failed to file the charge sheet against them within the stipulated period of 60 days.

Apart from Jain and Singhal, CBI had earlier arrested Arun Aggarwal, Puneet Godha, Vineet Godha, Pankaj Tiwari, Purushottam Lal Totlani and Vijay Pahuja in connection with the case.

In its charge sheet, CBI said nothing incriminating has come on record against Arun Aggarwal, CFO of Bhushan Steel and Power Ltd, and Totlani and therefore they were not charge sheeted.

CBI had registered two separate graft cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy.

In August last year, CBI had arrested some of the accused in connection with the case and claimed to have recovered Rs 21 lakh in cash from Jain's residence besides gold worth Rs 1.68 crore and fixed deposit documents of up to Rs 63 lakh.

The agency has filed two cases against Jain, accusing him of receiving a bribe of Rs 50 lakh through conduits and abusing his official position to enhance the credit limits of some companies in violation of laid-down procedures.