New Delhi: The court proceedings in a CWG
graft case, stalled for over a month due to a defence counsel
allegation that the judge was not conducting a fair trial,
would resume on March 13.
The case came up for hearing today before Special Judge
Talwant Singh, a day after the city`s subordinate judiciary
chief, District Judge Sunita Gupta refused to transfer the
case to another court as per the plea by Special Judge Singh,
who had sent the case file to her after defence counsel Ramesh
Gupta had made the allegation on February 9.
Special Judge Singh listed the matter for March 13 for
filing of applications by the accused for supply of the CBI
documents to them.
District Judge Sunita Gupta had yesterday refused to
transfer the case from court of the special judge saying the
"unpleasant incident," does not warrant transfer of case as it
sometimes happen in a heat of moment.
Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who represents former OC
Secretary General Lalit Bhanot, a co-accused in the case
involving grant of contract for installation of Timing,
Scoring and Result (TSR) System to a Swiss firm at an
exorbitant cost, had said that a hostile atmosphere was being
created in the court due to summoning of the accused everyday
for scrutiny of documents.
This remark had irked Special Judge Singh, who had sent
the file of the case to the court of district judge with a
request to transfer the same to another court. Special Judge
Singh had also said that Gupta`s conduct should be brought to
the notice of the Delhi High Court`s Chief Justice.
In the case, Kalmadi and other co-accused are charged with
illegally granting the TSR system contract to Swiss Timing
Omega during the 2010 Commonwealth Games here, causing a loss
of over Rs 90 crore to the state exchequer.
Besides Kalmadi and Bhanot, other nine accused in the case
are CWG 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 are no more
associated with the sporting body.
Promoters of two construction companies - P D Arya and A K
Madan of Faridabad-based Gem International and A K Reddy and
his firm AKR Constructions are also accused in the case.
Besides them, the two firms, Swiss Timing Omega (the swiss
firm which was awarded the contract at exorbitant rates) and
AKR Constructions are also accused in the case.
PTI
