New Delhi: Former Secretary General of CWG Organising Committee Lalit Bhanot, arrested for his alleged role in a scam, flouted the standard procedures to be followed for drafting minutes of the Committee's meeting on purchasing of equipment, a senior OC official has told CBI.
In his statement to the CBI, OC Deputy Director General (Sports) Gurdyal Singh Bawa, who has been arrayed as one of the prosecution witnesses, said Bhanot then being Chairman of Committee of Sports Surfaces and Sports Equipment used to finalise the minutes of Committee without obtaining signature and suggestions of its members. "On being asked it is stated that standard procedure of the draft minutes of a committee being circulated to all members, obtaining their suggestions and corrections/additions /alteration if any, and thereafter preparation of final minutes of the committee before the meeting of the next committee was not followed."
"No signatures of the members of the committee were taken on the final minutes to be kept on record. It is stated that the minutes of the committee were finalised by Lalit Bhanot and, thereafter, I used to sign it," Bawa said in his statement which is a part of the charge sheet filed by the CBI in the case.
Bawa's statement is annexed with the charge sheet filed by the CBI in a Delhi court on May 20 against former OC Chairman Suresh Kalmadi, Bhanot and others for their alleged involvement in the Timing, Scoring and Result (TSR) scam in which a contract was illegally awarded to the Swiss firm.
The request for proposal (RFP) for TSR was issued on October 1, 2009 and the last date for submission of tenders was October 31, 2009, which was then extended to November 4, 2009. "It is seen that the bid of Swiss Timing and of MSL (Spanish firm) for TSR were submitted on November 4, 2011. Only two bids are shown to have been received. Thus, not a single bid had even been received till the time when the said declaration was made by Verma in the CGF General Assembly on October 12, 2009," Bhatnagar said.
He added that Swiss Timing had not even made a bid till that time and thus it was not even known whether it will bid or not.
Bhanot and OC Joint Director General (Sports) ASV Prasad, who are currently lodged in Tihar Jail along with Kalmadi and others, had also pressed for giving the contract to Swiss Timing, he said.
Bhatnagar also said that during all the interactions on the subject of TSR, the message from the top management of OC to the stakeholders, to the government bodies or to outsiders was that "OC will be working with Swiss Timing Omega only".
He also mentioned in his statement that though OC was formed in 2005, yet there was no planning, delegation of powers, no finalisation of procurement process for vital items. "It is clear that there was a deliberate delay on the part of OC and citing shortage of time and national prestige being at stake, they were pressing through their decisions in deviation from established rules, regulations and norms. In this situation it was impossible to take drastic remedial action on part of the government," Bhatnagar told CBI.
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