CBI court frames charges against Kalmadi, 9 others in CWG scam

CBI court frames charges against Kalmadi, 9 others in CWG scam New Delhi, Feb 4 : A Delhi court on Monday fixed charges against former CWG Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The CBI court framed the charges against Kalmadi and nine other accused in connection with a corruption case linked to the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. All accused including the sacked CWG chief were present in the court.

The court has also ordered fast-tracking of the case and hearings will be held four times a week. The next hearing will be on February 7.

Special CBI judge Ravinder Kaur had deferred the framing of charges on January 10, saying she needs more time to go through the entire records of the case before passing any order.

The court had on December 21, 2012, levelled charges of corruption and conspiracy against Kalmadi and 10 others.

Besides Kalmadi, former CWG OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot and nine others have been chargesheeted for allegedly overpaying a Swiss firm Rs. 95 crores for timing and scorekeeping equipment that was used at different venues during the games.

The other accused in the case are the OC's Director General V. K. Verma, Director General (Procurement) Surjit Lal, Joint Director General (Sports) A. S. V. Prasad and Treasurer M Jayachandran.

They have been chargesheeted under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including criminal conspiracy.

Earlier, during arguments over the charges, Kalmadi's counsel had said the facts given in the CBI's chargesheet were contrary to documents submitted by the agency to the court.

Kalmadi had told the court that he was only doing the work assigned to him as the OC chairman and nothing wrong was done by him during the entire process. (ANI)