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April 4, 2001
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Money > Business Headlines > Report April 4, 2001 |
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B P Verma suspended; 2 accused produced in courtOnkar Singh in New Delhi The Central Board of Excise and Customs former chairman B P Verma was on Wednesday suspended from government service, two days after CBI arrested him on charges of corruption. According to government rules, any employee who is arrested is deemed to be suspended after 48 hours, if not released within two days. Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation produced Rajiv Kumar and Sharvan Kumar in the court M L Sahani, special designated judge for CBI who remanded the two accused to police custody till April 7. The judge also directed that Sharvan Kumar, a business partner of Madras-based firm A K Enterprises, be medically examined in Safdarjung Hospital. Rajiv Kumar worked as manager in the firm of Siddarth Verma Jubliee Medicare and used to collect money on behalf of former chief of excise and customs B P Verma from various client on regular basis. Meanwhile, Verma continues to be in the intensive care unit of the Safdarjung Hospital and could not be interrogated by the CBI. "The CBI investigating teams are at the moment questioning B P Verma's son Siddarth Verma, Bhavna Pandey, an alleged conduit of B P Verma, middleman K Vijay Pratap, Rajiv Kumar and Sharvan Kumar regarding their role in the Verma bribery case. The CBI sources claimed they thay they have taped conversations to show that Vijay Pratap was dealing with Verma and his son Siddarth Verma. The sleuths of the agency are now looked for one Mohan Gupta who is in the business of pouch making and is allegedly owns a farm house in Brijvasan in south Delhi. The agency suspects that though the property is in the name of Mohan Gupta it actually belongs to B P Verma. The agency officials are still very reluctant to talk about the role of Bhavna Pandey. "She is a middle aged woman from Nainital and she was a good friend of Verma. All those officers who wanted good posting dealt with Verma through her. The reason why she has been picked up is that Verma used her premises in Saket in South Delhi to make telephone calls to people and was a frequent visitor to her house," said a senior official of the agency. Her name however does not figure in the list of the accused in the first information report lodged by CBI. The official spokesman S M Khan clarified that Uzbek woman Olga has nothing to do with the Verma case. The agency claimed that Vijay Pratap during his interrogation has admitted that he was giving money to Verma. In one of the conversation with Verma and his son Vijay Pratap said if they have received the sum (which was incidentally collected by Rajiv Kumar and not by Siddarth Verma as claimed by CBI earlier). Both Verma and Siddarth verified that the money had indeed reached them. Vijay Pratap also claimed that he had delivered only Rs 200,000 to Rajiv Kumar and not Rs 20 million as claimed by the agency. Siddarth Verma had three companies by the name of Jubilee Enterprises, Jubilee Investments and Jubilee Medicare. Verma is alleged to have invested close to Rs 20 million in these companies. "The whole thing is still in the initial stage and we would give you the full picture after the police remand of all the accused come to an end," promised an official of the agency. The CBI spokesman S M Khan denied that it has arrested any other official of the department of customs. It may be recalled that the agency had raided over 48 top officials of department of customs and excise on last Saturday for helping Olga and her friend in smuggling Chinese silk into India for two Afghans who are still evading arrests. "The investigations are still continuing in the case and it would take sometime before to assess the documents found during the raids," he said. The finance ministry received a formal intimation of Verma's arrest from CBI and orders for his suspension were being sent out immediately, official sources said adding the suspension is automatic once an employee is under arrest for 48 hours. Additional inputs: PTI ALSO READ:
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