TSR scam: Contract awarded before firms applied

NEW DELHI: Top CWG Organising Committee officials, including its chairman Suresh Kalmadi, had decided to award the contract for Timing, Scoring and Result (TSR) system to Swiss company Omega much before the firm had applied for the same, a senior civil servant has told the CBI.

Rahul Bhatnagar, currently working as Joint Secretary (International Sports Division) in Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, told the CBI that top OC officials in the General Assembly of Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) in 2009 had declared that the tender for TSR system would be awarded to Swiss Timing Omega.

"The General Assembly of CGF was held on October 12, 2009 when the said declaration was made by V K Verma (OC Director General) in the General Assembly, and the tender for TSR was on.

"In the video recordings (of CGF general assembly 2009), after the opening speech by Suresh Kalmadi, Verma is seen declaring that TSR will be provided by Swiss Timing," Bhatnagar, a witness in the TSR case, said in his statement which has been a part of the charge sheet filed in the court of special CBI judge Talwant Singh.

According to the charge sheet filed by CBI on May 20, the accused allegedly awarded the lucrative contract to the Swiss firm to install a Timing-Scoring-Result (TSR) system for the Commonwealth Games at an exorbitant cost, causing a loss of over Rs 90 crore to the exchequer.

Besides Kalmadi, the agency has named two companies and eight persons, including OC former Secretary General Lalit Bhanot and former Director General V K Verma as accused and sought their prosecution under various provisions of the IPC, dealing with criminal conspiracy, forging documents and using fake documents as genuine.