Srijan scam: Three accused secure bail

PATNA: The CBI special court on Monday granted bail to Bhagalpur DM's steno Prem Kumar and two others as the central investigating agency failed to file chargesheet against them within 90 days of their arrest in the Srijan scam of over Rs1041.5 crore. The other two who were granted bail included Srijan's auditor Satish Kumar Jha and one Rakesh Kumar.

Meanwhile, the CBI on Monday filed the fourth chargesheet against seven accused in the scam. CBI sources said the case is related to unauthorized transfer of around Rs30.25 crore from the cooperative department into the Indian Bank account of Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti. The money was transferred between 2012 and 2014.

The chargesheet was filed against the then managing director Pankaj Kumar Jha and the then accounts manager Harishankar Upadhyay of Bhagalpur Central Cooperative Bank, former assistant managers Pradeep Kumar Biswas, Subrata Das, Praveen Kumar and Shriram Krishna Jha and clerk Ajay Kumar Pandey of Indian Bank. Pankaj, Harishankar and Ajay are behind the bars while others are evading arrest.

The chargesheet was filed before the court of CBI magistrate Gayatri Devi but it was later transferred to the court of special CBI judge Ajay Kumar Tripathy on a petition of special public prosecutor Akhtar Hussain Khan.