Armed with new details gathered by its team in London in connection with THE Queen's Baton Relay, the CBI has asked former Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi to appear before it next week.
Kalmadi has been called to "clarify" some issues which came to light during the visit of the two-member CBI team to London in connection with cases related to alleged irregularities in hiring AM Films and AM Car and Van Hire Limited during QBR held in 2009, sources in the agency said.
The agency has sent a two-member team, comprising Additional Director V K Gupta and DIG S K Palsania, to London which has got some "clinching" details about the payments made to the two companies allegedly with the sanction of Kalmadi, they said.
However, Kalmadi did not respond to SMSes and calls made to him to seek his comments on the development.
CBI sources said the team now wants Kalmadi to reply to the new pieces of information on the monetary transactions with the two companies. The agency had called Kalmadi, who informed them that since he is out of country, he can appear only on April 19 to answer its queries.
Sources said the agency gathered evidence against Ashish Patel, owner of the firms, for allegedly manipulating certain documents to get undue benefits from the deal with the help of some OC officials.
"It is alleged that in relation to the QBR held on October 29, 2009 the OC awarded the work of transportation to the company namely AM Car and Van Hire Ltd, owned by Ashish Patel, at exorbitantly high rates... the work was awarded to AM Car and Van Hire Ltd without following the standard tender process," the FIR registered by CBI said.
The work was given to the firm on the false promise made by it that it was on the panel of the Indian High Commission, London, it said.
CBI has registered a total of nine FIRs in different cases related to alleged corruption in the run-up to the mega sporting extravaganza, held in Delhi between October 3-14 last year.
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