Judge Bribery Case: Special court seeks CCTV footage of ED office, probe cell

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

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Chandigarh, July 12

In the judge bribery case, a special court, Panchkula, has directed that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) “shall forthwith preserve the CCTV footage” pertaining to its Delhi office as well as “Interrogation Cell” where accused Lalit Goyal, vice-chairman/MD of IREO group, was interrogated, for July 8, 9 and 10 and send it to the court in a pen drive.

Rajeev Goyal, a Special Judge under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), gave the directions as Goyal and his lawyers complained that the arrestee was never taken to hospital for medical examination, as claimed by the ED in its remand application and was kept in the interrogation cell, where his signatures and thumb impressions were obtained on blank papers to be used at will to the prejudice and detriment of the accused.

The hearing went on from 4.30 pm to 8 pm on July 11 in the ED’s case of bribing a CBI/ED judge, Sudhir Parmar, for allegedly extending favours to Goyal and owners of the M3M group, Roop Bansal and Basant Bansal, in an ongoing money laundering investigation. Goyal was arrested on July 4.

The judge observed, “He (Lalit Goyal) has also stated before me that while he was crying with pain and, therefore, had requested ED officials to get him the necessary medical aid, nothing was done and as such, he was put to a lot of harassment.” When questioned, the ED’s investigating officer (IO), Assistant Director Sumit Upadhyay, recorded his statement before the court where he admitted that Goyal was not taken to Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, as claimed in their remand application, but doctors from the hospital examined him on July 8, 9 and 10 at the ED head office, New Delhi. The IO said in the remand application that the word “in” had been mentioned instead of “from”.

The CCTV footage has been directed to be submitted on or before July 25. On the perusal of files, Special Judge Rajeev Goyal observed that during the ED custody, Goyal had been “questioned extensively and whether or not, the answers given by him were evasive”, he couldn’t be compelled to answer in a particular manner “suiting the requirements of ED”.