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House audit panel questions CBI on Commonwealth Games case closures
Parliament’s audit watchdog has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to furnish a report on why the probe agency closed 18 cases in the Commonwealth Games scam, which led to a political storm against the Congress.
Parliament’s audit watchdog has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to furnish a report on why the probe agency closed 18 cases in the Commonwealth Games scam, which led to a political storm against the Congress.
At the meeting of a sub-group of Public Accounts Committee on the CWG on Tuesday, lawmakers quizzed CBI chief Anil Sinha after he informed that 18 out of 33 cases lodged by the agency have been closed. Permission from the court has been sought to close down six more cases, Sinha said.
“It was such a high-profile case. The CAG gave a detailed report. Yet, we see so many cases had to be closed as the CBI failed to pursue leads. After we get a reply from the CBI, we will judge the merit in each of the closures,” said a senior Opposition MP.
The allegations of financial scam in the CWG, hosted in Delhi in 2010, had rocked Parliament as a united Opposition attacked the Congress, then the biggest party in the ruling dispensation. Former Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the CWG organising committee, faces charges of alleged financial irregularities, and was jailed for 10 months.
Kalmadi was arrested in 2011 along with two of aides on charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy in the scam that cost the exchequer Rs 90 crore.
Some members, however, maintained that a review of closed cases would not be helpful, said a source. “Some members also feel that Kalmadi the then president of the Indian Olympic Association, may not be at fault,” said an MP.
