By IANS,
New Delhi : A special CBI court hearing the Commomwealth Games street lighting scam here Friday discharged an accused but found prima facie evidence against four MCD officials and three other accused while reserving its order on framing of charges.
Special CBI judge Pradeep Chaddha discharged accused Mehul Karnik, an employee of Philips India Pvt Ltd, saying that he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The court observed that Karnik was representing a rival company during bidding.
The court found prima facie evidence against the four MCD officials, MCD Superintendent Engineer D.K. Sugan, Executive Engineer O.P. Mahala, Accountant Raju V. and civic body’s tender clerk Gurcharan Singh.
The court also turned down the plea of Sweska Powertech Engineering Pvt Ltd which said that no case is to be made against it as the CBI has registered a case against it with the wrong name and conducted investigations against the wrong company.
The court found evidence against the company and its Director J.P. Singh and Managing Director T.P. Singh.
According to the CBI chargesheet, the accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy for upgrading the street lights in view of the forthcoming CWG in Oct 2010 and caused a loss of around 1,42,83,000 Crore to the government.
The CBI has alleged that tenders of street lighting were invited by the civic agency in 2008. Tenders were opened May 2008 and they wrongfully awarded the tender to Sweska Powertech.
The court while discharging Karnik observed that he was in the same room when the tenders were being opened, but it noted that the company initially participated in the tender process but ultimately did not submit the tender.
The CBI has registered the case against the accused person for the offence of cheating, criminal conspiracy and other related charges with various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.