CBI to summon senior railway officials; phone taps with CFSL

The Central Bureau of Investigation has identified for questioning senior railway ministry officials who processed files related to the promotion of a key arrested accused, suspended railway board member Mahesh Kumar. Abhishek Sharan reports.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has identified for questioning senior railway ministry officials who processed files related to the promotion of a key arrested accused, suspended railway board member Mahesh Kumar.

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“The chairman of the railway board has provided to CBI the files related to the promotion of Mahesh Kumar as railway board member (staff) and on the permission given to him to hold in an irregular manner the additional charge of general manager, western railway,” said a CBI source.

“The CBI will soon summon all officials that were part of the exercise for questioning,” said the source.

The source said, “From preliminary scrutiny, it appears that while Kumar’s promotion was done in a regular manner, the decision to let him have the allegedly lucrative additional charge was highly irregular.”

The CBI meanwhile has procured voice samples from the nine accused arrested in the case so far and sent them to Central Forensic Science Laboratory on Saturday for forensic confirmation, said the source.

“The voice samples would be matched with the 1,000-odd telephonic/mobile phone intercepts — featuring alleged conversations among the accused persons — made by a special unit of the CBI as part of its probe,” said the source. Among the nine-arrested accused are Kumar, Vijay Singla (the nephew of former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal), Sandeep Goyal, and owner of a Bangalore-based private firm.

Kumar, along with Singla, were arrested on May 3 on allegations that they had entered into a deal to fix a top a top post on the railway board for him for Rs.10 crore.