Rs 70 lakh for Shilpa Shetty show at ‘Kalmadi instance’

The court dealing with CWG related corruption case said that two of the accused had paid over Rs 70 lakh for actor Shilpa Shetty's performance during the closing ceremony of 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games at Pune, as desired by Kalmadi.

The court observed that promoters of Faridabad-based Gem International, P D Arya and A K Madan, paid the amount to event management firm Wizcraft. Shetty's performance had not been sanctioned by the OC and funds for the event were not paid by the Games OC.

Noting that the agency had produced a letter from Wizcraft to the OC, specifically stating the performance had been arraged "at the last minute as desired by Kalmadi", the court allowed the CBI allegation that the conspiracy and misuse of public office had begun from 2008 onwards.

Judge Ravinder Kaur framed charges under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) 467, 468 (forgery), 471 (using forged document) 506 (criminal intimidation, 201/511 (attempted destruction of evidence) of the IPC alongwith 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act for misuse of official position against the accused.

The accused will be tried for having "illegally" awarded a contract to put in place a timing, scoring and results (TSR) system for the 2010 CWG to Swiss Timing Omega (STO) at an inflated rate, causing a loss of over Rs 90 crore to the public exchequer. STO will be separately tried and has not yet been charged.

Besides Kalmadi and Bhanot, the other accused are OC director general V K Verma, director general (procurement) Surjit Lal, joint director general (sports) A S V Prasad and treasurer M Jayachandran, who are no longer associated with the sporting body.

Promoters of two companies — Arya and Madan of Gem and A K Reddy of Hyderabad-based AKR Constructions — are also accused in the case.

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