Sixteen years after the CBI booked them on the charge of cheating the Southern Railways of ₹5.28 lakh, three former senior railway officials were acquitted by a trial court on Wednesday.
Besides T.P. Ayyappan Kartha, former executive engineer, Sunil Kumar Bansal, deputy chief engineer; K.T. Varghese, section engineer, and K. Vangili and M. Balu, the two businessmen who were arraigned in the case by the investigation agency, were also let off by the CBI Special Judge.
The prosecution case was that the accused had falsely shown that transportation of stone ballast for the doubling of railway line in Kasaragod was made by road lorry as well as rail lorry, though it was actually transported only by rail lorry.
