A court here on Tuesday allowed an employee of a travel firm to turn approver in a case involving an alleged Rs 14 lakh fradulent Leave Travel Concession (LTC) claimed by Rajya Sabha member Anil Kumar Sahani in 2012.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal allowed the plea of Anup Singh Panwar, an employee of Delhi-based Air Cruise Travels Private Limited, seeking to become approver in the case and granted him pardon.
The court order came after public prosecutor Manoj Shukla said that he had disclosed incriminating facts against the other accused persons and explained his role too.
Panwar also recorded his statement before a magistrate.
He told the court that he had made the statement voluntarily and has disclosed full facts about his role.
The court listed the matter for July 24 for arguments on the point of charge in the case.
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Sahani, whose Rajya Sabha term ends in April 2018, Air India's then Office Superintendent N.S. Nair, and Arvind Tiwari, who works with Murgai Travels, have been booked under various sections dealing with cheating, forgery and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The case was registered on October 31, 2013, against Sahani and others.
The CBI alleged that in 2012 Sahani entered into a criminal conspiracy with Air Cruise Travels Private Limited and others, aiming to cheat the government by claiming fake reimbursement of expenditure incurred on purported air journeys along with other companions.
The CBI said Sahani, in collusion with other persons, used forged e-tickets and fake boarding passes to claim Rs 14 lakh as Travelling Allowance and Daily Allowance (TA/DA) reimbursement without undertaking the actual journey.
The court observed that Sahani also committed offence under Section 201 (destruction of evidence) as he destroyed the TA Claim form and erased and deleted the signature from the e-tickets which he had taken back from the office of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat in the name of verification.
Sahani, a Janata Dal-United (JD-U) member from Bihar, however, has denied the charges.
--IANS
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