CWG overlays: CBI to file second chargesheet soon

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing corruption in the conduct of Commonwealth Games (CWG) held last October, is likely to soon file its second chargesheet pertaining to alleged irregularities in the award of overlays contract, worth over Rs 630 crore.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing corruption in the conduct of Commonwealth Games (CWG) held last October, is likely to soon file its second chargesheet pertaining to alleged irregularities in the award of overlays contract, worth over Rs 630 crore.

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The CBI probe has established that a few officials belonging to the CWG Organising Committee (OC), including its director general VK Verma, had allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with the representatives of four foreign consortiums to award them lucrative contracts at “exorbitant rates,” said a CBI official. The chargesheet, which would be filed soon, may not include the name of OC’s former chairman Suresh Kalmadi, according to the official.

In its FIR lodged in January, the CBI had alleged that Verma and other OC officials had as part of the conspiracy with managing directors/ directors of private companies—representing the four foreign consortiums—awarded them overlays contracts for CWG’s different venues at exorbitant rates via irregular processes.

The CBI has arrested a few OC officials including Verma and OC’s additional director general (finance) KUK Reddy in the case along with a few overlays suppliers including Praveen Bakshi, Binu Nanu and Sandeep Wadhwa. The CBI had earlier raided the premises—located in Delhi and National Capital Region—of the representatives of the four accused foreign consortiums as part of its probe.

As per the CBI probe’s findings, the OC’s Evaluation Committee had, on January 14, 2010, recommended the names of six of the 10 overlays bidders it had short-listed, but Verma allegedly arbitrarily selected only the four foreign consortiums.

“The disqualification of the other two bidders was based on a set of shortcomings they had. Surprisingly, the selected four bidders, the foreign consortiums, also had the same shortcomings but this fact was overlooked as part of the conspiracy,” said the CBI official.

The CBI had earlier informed a special court, hearing the case, that a supplier had allegedly paid a bribe of R40 lakh to the OC officials as part of the “quid pro quo”, said the official. Its findings alleged that around “2.5 % of the total worth of the overlays projects was to be paid to the OC officials as part of the conspiracy,” said the official.