Bribery case: ED names former CBI judge in supplementary chargesheet
Chandigarh, October 6
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today filed a supplementary chargesheet in the “judge bribery case”, naming former CBI judge Sudhir Parmar and director of Vatika group Anil Bhalla as accused.
The ED had arrested the judge on August 10 after permission from the Punjab and Haryana High Court on July 20. Based on the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) FIR, the ED had registered the case. The ACB had relied on WhatsApp chats and voice recordings that IREO/M3M paid Rs 5 crore to the judge. Further, Rs 5-7 crore was being negotiated for favouring M3M Group in court proceedings.
As per ED investigations, judge Sudhir Parmar abused his official position to get his nephew Ajay Parmar a job in M3M. Ajay allegedly got Rs 40 lakh from R Sai Transport firm and transferred Rs 41 lakh to his mother Pushpa Devi’s account. His brother Paramveer Singh, too, received Rs 36 lakh from the firm. She herself received Rs 54 lakh and used the money to buy a plot in Gurugram.
The firm’s owner, Rohit Tomar, told the ED that it was a loan to the family, but admitted that no loan agreement was signed, no interest was charged or paid, no repayment started and no collateral or security was taken. The plot was registered for Rs 1.8 crore, but the market value was over Rs 4 crore.
The judge was also in touch with Anil Bhalla, who is facing investigation for money-laundering. In its submissions before the court, the ED said the mobile phone extracts revealed that he told Bhalla that his nephew would call him. In another conversation, Bhalla asked him if they could encash the cheques today, to which the judge replied “kindly deposit in 3-4 days”.
Further, Ajay bought agricultural land at a village in Pataudi (Gurugram), along with Tomar and a contractor for Rs 1 crore. Ajay’s share is 20 per cent, but he paid just Rs 6 lakh, while Tomar contributed the rest of Rs 14 lakh of his share.
The first chargesheet was filed on August 11 against Ajay Parmar, Paramveer Singh, Pushpa Devi, Rohit Tomar, Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal (promoters of M3M Group) and Lalit Goyal, MD of IREO Group.
