The four accused were produced before the court of Special CBI Judge Sudhir Parmar in Panchkula. (Representational)A CBI court on Thursday sent two Indian Army officers — Lieutenant Colonel Rahul Pawar and Subedar Major Pardeep Kumar — as well as two contractors to 14 days of judicial custody. All the four men had been nabbed by the CBI on August 21 on charges of demanding and accepting bribes.
After their arrest from Ambala Cantonment, the four men were initially sent to CBI custody for four days, before being produced before Special CBI Judge Sudhir Parmar in Panchkula on Thursday.
Sources said that during the course of their questioning, the CBI had had stumbled upon more Army personnel who might be involved in the case, with a Colonel rank officer also being questioned by the bureau in this regard.
Sources in the bureau said that all relevant documents of contracts, which were awarded to contractor Dinesh Kumar (a resident of Kurukshetra) and his associate Pritpal Singh (a resident of Ambala), have already been obtained from Ambala Cantonment. A few documents related to the process of allotting contracts for various works to private companies has also been seized by the CBI.
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The CBI has so far told the court that the accused were arrested after the Army officers allegedly accepted a bribe of Rs 22.48 lakh from the contractors. In subsequent raids, the CBI had allegedly recovered Rs 32.5 lakh, along with incriminating documents, from Lieutenant Colonel Pawar’s house in Ambala, and Rs 16 lakh from the residences of the private contractors.
According to the CBI, a case was registered against the two officers for demanding and accepting bribes from the two contractors for awarding most tenders or orders from Ambala Cantonment to them. The FIR filed in teh case mentions that the arrested Army officers allegedly demanded bribes as high as 45 to 55 per cent of the total value of contracts from the contractors.