New Delhi, June 11: A Delhi court today denied bail to R Perumalsamy, personal assistant to former Union Minister of State for Finance Gingee Ramachandran, IRS official Anurag Vardhan and chartered accountant A Krishnamoorthy, arrested for their alleged involvement in the cash-for-transfer scam. "Courts cannot show motherly leniency towards people accused of high corruption...The accused if released on bail at this stage of investigation may cover his tracks and hamper the investigation or blunt the effectiveness of investigative process," special judge Prem Kumar said dismissing their bail applications.
Rejecting Perumalsamy's bail plea, the court said the investigation of the case was still at a crucial stage.
CBI is yet to examine various IRS officers whose names were revealed from documents seized from his house and unearth the sources of the money received by the accused. "In fact the whole conspiracy in this case as well as the ramifications of the racket of transfer and posting is yet to be unearthed," the order said.
CBI had registered an FIR against the three accused and one S Padmanabhan, a project associate at IIT, Delhi charging them with conspiring to give the IRS official a transfer to Mumbai in return for money. The agency alleged that they were part of a bigger racket facilitating choice transfer of income tax officials in return for illegal gratification.
Rejecting the plea that there were specific rules for transfer of IRS officials and that Vardhan could not have manipulated them, the Judge said, "Although there is no dearth of institutional mechanisms or rules in the matter of transfer of civil servants, it is just that they are not allowed to operate." "The transfer guidelines remain on paper as pious exhortations and transfers are made for extraneous considerations...The natural consequences of such transfer is that public servants tend to use their public office for private ends," the court observed.
On Krishnamoorthy, the order said CBI was yet to examine material witnesses including officials from the income tax department.
The sources of income of accused including the recovery of cash, promissory notes and unsigned cheques all worth about Rs 1.55 crores is yet to be accounted for and explained, the court added.
"CBI is yet to understand as to under what circumstances the accused was keeping such huge cash, unsigned cheques and of her valuable securities, it said and dismissed his plea. Bureau Report