Railgate reports

Rail bribery scam: Phone taps sent to forensic lab

PTI  New Delhi, May 11, 2013

CBI has sent intercepted phone conversations to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory to identify the voices of suspects in the Rs. 10 crore railway bribery scandal which saw the resignation of Pawan Bansal as the railway minister.

CBI sources said the agency has sought the opinion of CFSL to identify the persons who are part of conversations intercepted by the agency in its surveillance project spanning over two months in which over 1,000 phone calls were tapped.
The sources said the agency wants to use these intercepts to further its investigation into the cash-for-post scam in which the nephew of Bansal, Vijay Singla, and suspended Railway Board member Mahesh Kumar were arrested.
Some of these tapped conversations were used by the agency to seek the remand of the accused arrested in connection with the bribery scandal.
CBI has identified for closer scrutiny 500 phone calls from out of the 1,000 intercepted calls mainly among the four arrested accused.
The sources said these calls were among four key players in the scandal - Kumar, Singla and middlemen Manjunath and Sandeep Goyal.
The sources said a discussion on the transfer of the Railway Board member in specific terms could not be traced so far in the intercepts of phone calls between Singla and Kumar.
However, there were calls in which Singla is purported to be assuring Kumar that the work would be done.
Kumar was allegedly assured that he will get the lucrative post of member (electrical) in return for "pecuniary gratification."