Delhi court grants bail to corporate affairs bureaucrat held for graft

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday g ranted bail to former corporate affairs ministry officer B.K. Bansal, who was arrested for taking a bribe, but barred him from

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday g ranted bail to former corporate affairs ministry officer B.K. Bansal, who was arrested for taking a bribe, but barred him from entering his office and leaving Delhi without permission.

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The special judge of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Gurdeep Singh, granted him the bail against a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of like amount.

Observing that “unfortunate incidents” had occurred in Bansal’s family while his only son was in depression, the court defined it “peculiar circumstances” warranting grant of bail.

The court told Bansal to neither tamper with evidence nor contact any of the officers in his office.

It asked him not to visit his office without the permission of the investigating officer.

Bansal was earlier granted interim bail on July 22 to cremate his wife Satyabala, 57, and daughter Neha, 27.

They committed suicide at their flat in Neelkanth Apartments in east Delhi after the CBI raided it.

Bansal was an additional secretary-ranked Director General in the Corporate Affairs Ministry.

He was arrested by the CBI on July 16 for allegedly receiving a sum of Rs 9 lakh from the Mumbai-based Elder Pharmaceuticals.

The court also granted bail to co-accused Vishwadeep Bansal, a distributor of Elder Pharmaceuticals, on furnishing of a personal and surety bond of Rs one lakh.

Two of the others accused, chartered accountant Gopal Krishan and middleman Vinod Singh, are already out on bail.