The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday gave a clean chit to former railway minister Pawan Bansal in its charge sheet in the cash for posts scam.
Bansal was forced to quit the ministry after his nephew, Vijay Singla, was caught taking a bribe of Rs 90 lakh to provide a plum posting on the railway board to Mahesh Kumar. Ten people, including Kumar and Singla, have been named in the chargesheet.
After the scam came to light in May, the CBI interrogated Bansal, a Congress MP from Chandigarh, for ten hours, but failed to find substantial evidence to nail him.
In his statement, Bansal denied having any knowledge of his nephew’s activities.
The CBI had claimed that Singla used to meet Kumar at Bansal’s official residence in Delhi. The agency also claimed that in April, Bansal met Kumar in Mumbai. During this time, Kumar held the position of general manager, western railways.
During its investigation, the CBI had intercepted more than 80 hours of conversation between Singla and Kumar.
In May, Singla was arrested with Rs 90 lakh allegedly paid by Kumar in exchange for a post on the board. The entire deal was for Rs 10 crores and Rs 90 lakh was the first installment.
In fact, a day before the arrest, Kumar was was appointed to the post of railway board member, staff.
According to the CBI, Kumar originally wanted to head the post of board member, electrical, because that would involve clearing contracts worth hundreds of crores.
Others named in CBI’s charge sheet include Sandeep Goyal, Ajay Garg, Manjunath, PV Murali, Rahul Yadav, Samir Sandhir,Sushil Daga and Venugopal.
