A Delhi court on Saturday remanded Nalco chairman-cum-managing director Abhay Kumar Srivastava, his wife and two others arrested in a bribery case in CBI custody till March 3.
"The case is required to be thoroughly investigated and for that sustained interrogation of the accused persons is required. Accordingly, I am satisfied that prayer for police custody of accused persons is justified," special CBI judge O.P. Saini said.
The CBI had on Friday arrested Nalco CMD Abhay Kumar Srivastava, his wife Chandani Srivastava, middleman Bhushan Lal Bajaj and his spouse Anita Bajaj and had recovered about 10 kgs of gold bricks and cash amounting to about Rs 30 lakh.
The investigating agency submitted that accused Bhushan Lal Bajaj was acting as the middleman for Abhay Kumar Srivastava for arranging bribe money by corrupt means from the bidders and suppliers of Nalco. It told the court that Bajaj was acting as a middleman for obtaining official favours for Bhatia Group of Companies from Srivastava and in lieu of the same he had collected huge illegal gratification on behalf of Srivastava from G.S. Bhatia, the CMD of Bhatia Group of Companies.
It also claimed that Srivastava had instructed Bajaj to convert the illegal gratification from Bhatia group of companies into gold and to deliver it to him.
The CBI submitted that the huge amount of gold and money were deposited in two bank lockers here.
The defence counsel opposed the CBI plea for seven-day police custody saying all searches have already been conducted and recoveries have been effected.