Noose around Kalmadi tightens
The noose around the chairman of the Organising Committee (OC) of the Commonwealth Games, Suresh Kalmadi, tightened further with the CBI summoning his office secretary, P.K. Srivastava, for questioning in connection with various corruption allegations related to the conduct of the Games.
According to sources, Mr Srivastava was called by the CBI officials on Wednesday in connection with agency’s probe related to alleged irregularities in several Games related contracts.
The CBI has also collected documents related to contracts signed with the Singapore subsidiary of the Australian company, Sports Marketing and Management (SMAM), from the OC office. It was the Singapore-based company of SMAM, which had bagged the CWG contract for getting sponsorship for the Games. For this, the OC had promised to pay them up to 23 per cent commission.
“The agency wants to understand the share-holding pattern of Singapore-based company and the circumstances under which the company was awarded the contract by the OC in 2007-08,” sources said.
The agency sleuths also suspect that the top brass of the OC had a share in the company. If required, CBI officials may question certain top brass of the OC in this regard, sources added.
Sources further said, “The CBI officials have collected documents related to the contracts awarded to some companies for the playing surface tracks for different stadia in Delhi for the Games.” The agency is looking into who cleared the specifications of the playing surface tracks and the circumstances under which specific companies were awarded the contracts for supplying the same.
“The CBI is also planning to question the chiefs of different sports federations in this regard as specifications were given by them”, sources said, adding that there reports about some of the playing tracks not being up to the mark. Sources said that the CBI, as well as the CAG, are probing it, sources added.
Agency sources said that the reports about some ineligible companies being awarded the contracts for supply the playing tracks because of alleged vested interest of certain federation heads were also being probed.
The probe agencies may question some OC officials also in this regard, sources said.
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