Delhi court allows lawyer of bribery case accused to be present during CBI interrogation

A Delhi court on Wednesday allowed a lawyer to remain present during the interrogation of an accused in Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody in an alleged bribery case involving senior railway official and others.

Special CBI Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal on Wednesday allowed the Advocate Ayush Jindal (Counsel) of Pawan Baid, an accused arrested by CBI in a bribery case, to remain present during the interrogation of the accused.

"....However, he be made to sit at a distance beyond hearing range, but within the visible range/distance", Court said.

The CBI recently has arrested the chief administrative officer (construction) Mahender Singh Chauhan of the Northeast Frontier Railways for allegedly receiving Rs 1 crore for granting favours in awarding lucrative contracts to a private company.

Pawan Baid, director of the company was arrested by the CBI on January 29 and was remanded till February 5 by the court.

According to the CBI statement, the agency had seized a huge amount in cash which were paid as bribe previously too.

Chauhan had allegedly demanded the bribe to show favours to the accused company in awarding contracts for various projects in the Northeast Frontier Railways.

According to a statement from the CBI, it had also arrested a Chief Administrative Officer (a Senior Railway Officer), Construction-II, North Eastern Frontier Railway(NFR), Maligaon(Assam); a Deputy Chief Engineer, NFR, Agartala; an Assistant Executive Engineer, N.F. Railway (NFR), Agartala (Tripura); an employee of a private company based at Guwahati (Assam) and a private person (a relative of CAO, North-Eastern Frontier Railway) in an on-going investigation of a case related to alleged bribery of Rs 1 crore.

"During searches, another sum of Rs 18.5 lakh (approximately) and Rs 6.5 lakh (approximately) have been recovered from the premises of Deputy Chief Engineer and Assistant Executive Engineer (AEN) respectively. Thus, a total amount of Rs 2.39 crore (approximately) has been recovered. This includes an alleged bribe of Rs 1 crore, which exchanged hands, is stated to be one of the biggest bribe money trapped," it said.

The CBI said the accused were abusing their official position for obtaining illegal gratification.

The agency said that the company's director was in contact with said CAO in various on-going projects in NFR region.

"It was also alleged that on his demand, the said Director through his employee got delivered bribe of Rs 1 crore to the relative (private person) of said CAO at his residence in Dehradun," read the CBI statement.

( With inputs from ANI )