The CBI, in a 36-page charge sheet filed in a court here on Tuesday, implicated the former chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, Suresh Kalmadi, Lalit Bhanot and V.K. Verma, besides seven others, for making a “wrongful pecuniary gain” of nearly Rs. 20 crore in the award of the Timing, Scoring and Results (TSR) system contract to Swiss Timing.
Charging the accused and two firms with awarding the contract to Swiss Timing, which cost the government a total outgo of Rs.157.62 crore when another bid was offered from MSL Spain that would have cost the Organising Committee only Rs. 62.01 crore, the charge sheet pegged the “wrongful loss” at Rs. 95.6 crore.
It makes several references to forgeries, abuse of official position by not following due procedures and attempts at eliminating all competition as a result of the alleged conspiracy.
The CBI alleged that Swiss Timing entered into a fraudulent contract on June 29, 2010, with Gem International to pay various commissions, ranging from 5 to 10 per cent for “vague activities such as consultancy, making presentations, etc.”
“In the garb of this fraudulent contract with Swiss Timing, Gem International raised five invoices for Rs. 23.21 crore. These invoices do not contain details of any tangible and commensurate service provided by Gem International to Swiss Timing.”
Of this amount, Rs.11.28 crore was paid to A.K. Reddy of A.K.R. Constructions with whom Gem International entered into a memorandum of understanding for laying of cables for the TSR contract.
“Wrongful gain”
The CBI said bogus expenditure of Rs.3.11 crore to payment for labour was shown by this company which had no experience in laying cables. Investigation revealed that the costing analysis of cabling work came to only Rs.75 lakh and that the construction firm did not produce any invoice or muster roll of the labour deployed.
“Therefore, the investigation has clearly established a wrongful pecuniary gain of about Rs. 20 crore out of the exorbitant price at which the deliberately short-listed single vendor Swiss Timing has been awarded the contract for TSR.”
