GAIL corruption case: Delhi court remands 3 accused to seven days CBI custody
Jan 16, 2022
New Delhi [India], January 16 : A Delhi court on Sunday has remanded the three accused in the GAIL corruption case in CBI custody for seven days.
The three accused were arrested in a corruption case relating to alleged irregularities in petrochemical products marketed by GAIL.
Special Judge Vinod Yadav also rejected the bail plea of N Ramakrishnan Nair, allegedly acting as a middleman of Director (Marketing) of Gail Authority of India Limited and ES Ranganathan for allegedly obtaining bribes from private companies engaged in buying petrochemical products marketed by GAIL.
Nair along with Pawan Gaur and Rajesh Kumar were arrested yesterday and were presented before Special Judge Vinod Yadav on Sunday. The court allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) application seeking seven days' police custody remand of three accused persons.
"All the said three accused persons are accordingly remanded to the custody of IO/CBI for a period of seven days, starting from today, i.e from 16.01.2022 to 22.01.2022," the Court ordered.
The Court also observed that accused persons would also be entitled to a legal interview with their counsel and meeting with one of the family members every 48 hours. "However, every care should be taken that the same should not hamper the investigation in any way and the social distancing norms/regulations framed by the Government regarding Covid-19 is to be strictly adhered to", added the Court.
Appearing for CBI, Public Prosecutor Neetu Singh told the Court that at least seven days of police custody remand of all the three accused persons are required by CBI in the matter to unearth their role and role of other persons in the entire criminal conspiracy.
"The investigation in the matter is at the initial and very crucial stage; searches are being carried out by CBI at different places to nab more accused persons involved in the offence and some more recoveries are yet to be effected in the matter."
The prosecutor has further argued that an unaccounted sum of Rs 75 lakhs were recovered from the residence of Nair and the source of that amount is also to be unearthed.
"After going through all the material produced before me, I am of the considered opinion that the police custody of aforesaid three accused persons is very much necessary to dig out the larger conspiracy as well as to unearth the roles of other accused persons involved in the matter," the court said.
Advocate Sunita Rani, appeared for accused Pawan Gaur, lawyer Gagandeep Arora represented Rajesh Kumar while Advocate Aditya S. Pujari was appearing for accused N Ramakrishnan Nair.
Earlier today, the CBI on Sunday arrested ES Ranganathan, Director (Marketing) of the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) and others in an alleged bribery case. On Saturday, the CBI conducted multiple raids in Noida and Delhi on the premises of the accused persons.
