New Delhi: Lt Gen (retd) Tejinder Singh was on Monday arrested on orders by a Delhi court which dismissed his bail plea for allegedly offering Rs 14 crore bribe to then Army Chief Gen V K Singh for clearing file pertaining to procurement of 1,676 heavy mobility Tatra vehicles.
Special CBI Judge Madhu Jain rejected Tejinder Singh’s bail application and sent him to judicial custody till October 20.
“Take him into custody,” the judge said. “To come up for scrutiny of documents and arguments on charge on October 20,” the court said. Meanwhile, CBI also supplied the copy of charge sheet and other documents to Tejinder Singh, who had appeared in the court following court’s summons in the case.
During the day, he had moved the bail plea which was opposed by the CBI and was later rejected by the court.
The court had taken cognisance of the charge sheet on August 28 after relying upon the statements of former Defence Minister A K Antony, V K Singh and other witnesses whose testimonies were recorded by the agency during the probe.
The CBI in its charge sheet had alleged that in August- September 2010, the file pertaining to procurement of 1,676 Tatra vehicles was pending before V K Singh, who is now a Minister of State of External Affairs and Minister of State in-charge of Department of Northeast Region.
The then Chief of Army Staff (COAS) was not convinced with the total projected requirement of the vehicles and it appeared to him that the requirement has been inflated, the agency had said, adding V K Singh had sought fresh opinion on the issue from different quarters.
In its charge sheet, the CBI had alleged that Tejinder Singh met V K Singh in his office in South Block on September 22, 2010, and during the meeting, he had offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore to V K Singh for clearing the file of Tatra vehicles by first week of October. V K Singh got infuriated and asked Tejinder Singh to immediately leave his office and he, thereafter, intimated A K Antony about the whole incident of bribe being offered to him, the CBI had said.
The charge sheet had claimed that Antony had confirmed having been informed by V K Singh about such offer of bribe made to him about by Tejinder Singh. CBI had arrayed 20 prosecution witnesses, including Antony, T K A Nair, the then adviser to the Prime Minister, and V K Singh and the agency had filed a set of 18 documents along with the charge sheet.
It had alleged that during the probe, the former Army chief had claimed to have recorded the alleged conversation between him and Tejinder Singh on September 22, 2010 but “the same was not provided by him (V K Singh) to the investigating agency despite efforts.” The CBI also claimed that before the alleged bribe offer was made, Tejinder Singh and V K Singh had “excellent working relations.”(PTI)
