Tweet
The CBI picked the Rs 141-crore time, scoring and results (TSR) contract — from among the clutch of cases it has either registered or which are under investigation — to arrest Suresh Kalmadi possibly because the evidence with it includes strong indictments of members of the team handpicked by the former Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman when he took charge of the 2010 event.
The evidence includes strongly worded statements of two senior OC officials, which were recorded by the CBI before a magistrate (under section 164 Crpc). The two officials, who are currently at the helm of affairs at the OC headquarters, have categorically admitted to being “coerced” and “harassed” by Kalmadi in connection with the TSR contract and for preparing bid and pre-qualification documents in such a manner so as to suit Swiss Timing, the company that eventually bagged the contract.
While the company signed the contract for Rs 107 crore, along with taxes it worked out to Rs 141 crore. The competing Spanish firm, MSL Software, on the other hand, offered the same services for Rs 46 crore. The difference between the two contract rates (Rs 95 crore) has thus been calculated by the CBI as the loss to the exchequer in the TSR case.
Significantly, the CBI’s case against Kalmadi was also bolstered by the testimony of two senior former OC officials, former Chief Operating Officer Vijay Kumar Gautam and former head of technology, Sujit Panigrahi.
Both are known to have vehemently argued against the single-vendor situation for the TSR contract and opined in favour of a wider choice of vendors.
Both resigned from their posts well before the 2010 Games and are known to have candidly listed their interventions and objections in statements to the CBI.
The CBI has with it dissent notes penned by Gautam specifically on the manner in which the TSR contract was being negotiated and how he had been kept out of the loop when the EOI (expression of interest) was announced in newspapers by the OC.
Panigrahi had, along with another OC official, stated during negotiations that both the firms — Swiss Timing and MSL Software — should be granted a split contract.
The two officials are also known to have in 2009 itself reported what they even then thought was a one-sided negotiation to OC bosses and have now repeated this before the CBI, which has seized all the files, dissent notes and minutes of negotiation meetings as part of its evidence.
The evidence includes strongly worded statements of two senior OC officials, which were recorded by the CBI before a magistrate (under section 164 Crpc). The two officials, who are currently at the helm of affairs at the OC headquarters, have categorically admitted to being “coerced” and “harassed” by Kalmadi in connection with the TSR contract and for preparing bid and pre-qualification documents in such a manner so as to suit Swiss Timing, the company that eventually bagged the contract.
While the company signed the contract for Rs 107 crore, along with taxes it worked out to Rs 141 crore. The competing Spanish firm, MSL Software, on the other hand, offered the same services for Rs 46 crore. The difference between the two contract rates (Rs 95 crore) has thus been calculated by the CBI as the loss to the exchequer in the TSR case.
Significantly, the CBI’s case against Kalmadi was also bolstered by the testimony of two senior former OC officials, former Chief Operating Officer Vijay Kumar Gautam and former head of technology, Sujit Panigrahi.
Both are known to have vehemently argued against the single-vendor situation for the TSR contract and opined in favour of a wider choice of vendors.
Both resigned from their posts well before the 2010 Games and are known to have candidly listed their interventions and objections in statements to the CBI.
The CBI has with it dissent notes penned by Gautam specifically on the manner in which the TSR contract was being negotiated and how he had been kept out of the loop when the EOI (expression of interest) was announced in newspapers by the OC.
Panigrahi had, along with another OC official, stated during negotiations that both the firms — Swiss Timing and MSL Software — should be granted a split contract.
The two officials are also known to have in 2009 itself reported what they even then thought was a one-sided negotiation to OC bosses and have now repeated this before the CBI, which has seized all the files, dissent notes and minutes of negotiation meetings as part of its evidence.
