Syndicate Bank bribery case: Court to hear arguments on January 11

A Delhi court has fixed January 11 for hearing the arguments on framing of charges in an alleged graft case in which CBI has chargesheeted Syndicate Bank’s sacked CMD Sudhir Kumar Jain, Bhushan Steel Ltd Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Neeraj Singal and four others. Special CBI Judge Gurdeep Singh posted the matter for next month after advocates appearing for the accused submitted that they need four weeks time to scrutinise voluminous documents supplied to them by the agency along with the charge sheet.

“Put up for scrutiny of documents/arguments on charge on January 11, 2016,” the court said. The court had earlier taken cognisance of CBI charge sheet filed against them for alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under various provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. Besides Jain and Singhal, the other accused chargesheeted by the CBI in the case are Vineet Godha, Puneet Godha, Vijay Pahuja and Pankaj Tiwari. The court had in September last year granted bail to all the accused, including Jain and Singhal, after CBI had failed to file the charge sheet against them within the stipulated period of 60 days.

In its charge sheet, the agency has said that service of Jain was terminated by the government and thus no sanction for his prosecution was required. Besides Jain and Singhal, CBI had earlier arrested Arun Aggarwal, Puneet Godha, Vineet Godha, Pankaj Tiwari, Vijay Pahuja and Purushottam Lal Totlani in connection with the case.