CBI to shut former Gen. bribery case

Amidst the ongoing controversy over former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh’s recent remarks on payoff to Jammu and Kashmir politicians, the CBI is all set to close its probe into an alleged bribe offer made by a retired Army officer to him (Gen. Singh) for clearing a tranche of high mobility Tatra vehicles for the Indian Army for lack of sufficient evidence. The CBI on October 20, 2012, had registered a case against a former senior Army officer for allegedly making a bribe-offer to the then Army Chief to clear a tranche of 1676 Tatra vehicles for the Indian Army. General V.K. Singh (Retd) in his statement to the agency sleuths had claimed that a former Army officer had offered him a bribe of `14 crore, a matter he had reported to the defence minister. The defence ministry had then recommended a CBI probe into the allegation made by the then Army chief. “All evidence provided by the former Army Chief have been scrutinised by the agency sleuths. The evidence provided to the agency are not sufficient enough to proceed further in the case. Now, we are taking a final legal opinion in this regard. We may have to close the case in the absence of any concrete evidence that would stand the scrutiny of the court of law”, sources said. After getting a formal complaint from the then Army Chief, the CBI had registered a PE in April, 2012 which was later converted into a regular case in October, 2012. General V.K. Singh (Retd) had also handed over the “record of discussion” (RD), regarding the bribe-offer allegedly made to him on September 22, 2010, to the CBI. Although, scrutiny of the visitors register (2010) of General Singh established that the former Army officer had made an entry in the register before meeting him on September 22, 2010, this is not a sufficient evidence to prove the allegation against the Army officer, sources said.