National Aluminium Company Ltd's (NALCO) former CMD Abhay Kumar Srivastava, his wife and five other accused were today put on trial by a special court on charges of alleged corruption and conspiracy.
Special Judge Vinod Kumar framed charges against all the accused for alleged offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC read with provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The seven accused did not plead guilty to the charges and claimed trial, after which the court fixed March 17 for recording of prosecution evidence in the case.
Besides Srivastava, the other accused in the case are his wife Chandini Srivastava, alleged middleman Bhushan Lal Bajaj, his wife Anita Bajaj, CMD of Indore-based Bhatia Group of companies Gurwinder Singh Bhatia and two executives of Group firm Jaswinder Singh Bhatia and Ratan Pal Singh Bhatia.
According to the CBI, Srivastava, who was CMD of NALCO in 2011, had instructed Bajaj to convert illegal gratification received from Bhatia Group of Companies into gold and deliver it to him.
CBI had alleged that 10 gold bricks, which were part of alleged gratification, were found in the bank locker opened in Anita Bajaj's name on the photograph of Chandini Srivastava who used to operate the locker.
The court had earlier ordered framing of charges against these accused saying "entire gamut of material on record is sufficient to frame a charge as prayed in the charge sheet."
During the arguments on framing of charges, the accused had denied allegations levelled against them by CBI.
In its charge sheet, the CBI had alleged that NALCO had floated a tender for purchase of two lakh tonnes of washed coal at a total cost of Rs 75 crore which was given to Bhatia International Ltd.
It had claimed that Srivastava, being the then CMD of NALCO, had demanded illegal gratification from Gurwinder Singh Bhatia through Bajaj.
CBI had referred to intercepted telephonic conversations to show that Srivastava and Bajaj were frequently meeting as well as talking on phone.
Regarding Jaswinder Singh Bhatia and Ratan Pal Singh Bhatia, the agency had said they were Director (Marketing) and senior executive respectively with Bhatia group and were allegedly utilised for passing the bribe amount of Rs 80 lakh in two installments to Srivastava through Bajaj.
