The Central Bureau of Investigation has given a clean chit to the former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal as it could not get any tapped conversation that shows that the former minister was involved in or had any knowledge of the Rs 10 crore cash-for-post bribery scandal. Therefore the agency has not made him an accused in the case but a witness.
The CBI said during investigations they could not find out any conversation between the minister's nephew Vijay Singla and the minister which has any mention of suspended Railway Board member Mahesh Kumar's posting. Singla and Kumar are among the 10 accused in the scandal. Sources said it has also come to light during the investigation that Bansal had no knowledge of the meetings between Singla and Kumar which took place at the official residence of the minister in his absence.
The sources also claimed the probe found that meetings which took place between Bansal and Kumar were all for official purposes and there was no instance of any irregular meeting taking place between the two. The CBI has included Bansal as one of its witnesses in the charge sheet filed in the railway bribery scandal, which had forced the minister to quit. The probe agency has alleged that Singla had demanded Rs 10 crore from Kumar for his appointment to the post of member (electrical) and it was decided between the accused that Rs 5 crore will be paid before the appointment and the rest will be paid after the job was done.
The first tranche of Rs 89.68 lakh was given to Singla, who was apprehended while accepting the money, it said. CBI had filed charge sheet on May 2 against 10 accused –Kumar, Singla, managing director of Bangalore-based GG Tronics India Manjunath Narain Rao, middlemen Ajay Garg and Sandeep Goyal, Rahul Yadav, Samir Sandhir, Sushil Daga, CV Venugopal and MV Murali Krishan. Barring Murali and Venugopal, CBI has arrested the eight accused named in its charge sheet.
