Ahmedabad: A designated court for Anti- Curruption Bureau (ACB) cases today turned down the regular bail plea of former IAS officer Sanjay Gupta and six others in connection with Rs.113-crore Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar Metro rail scam.
The plea was rejected by Special ACB Court Judge H J Joshi.
In their bail plea, Gupta and others had contended that they should be given the relief since the investigation against them is already over and a charge sheet has been filed by the probe agency CID Crime.
However, public prosecutor Varsha Kiran Rao opposed their bail plea and told the court that further investigation is still on against the accused.
Rao said that the CID Crime recently uncovered illegal transactions worth Rs 70 crore made by Gupta, which is in addition to Rs 113 crore of financial irregularities brought out in the initial probe.
She argued that if Gupta is given bail at this point, there is a possibility that he may influence the probe. Based on these arguments, Special Judge H J Joshi rejected the bail plea.
The CID Crime had arrested Gupta, the former chairman of Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar Metro rail project, on May 14, alleging that financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 113 crore took place during his tenure in Metro link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad (MEGA) in 2012.
The CID had booked Gupta and ten others for siphoning off around Rs 113 crore by presenting forged bills and bogus documents related to ground filling work carried out near Bhat village for the metro railway project in 2012.
Gupta also allegedly floated several bogus firms by appointing Neesa Group employees as directors and showed these firms as material suppliers.
He paid Rs 11.12 crore to seven such companies and the money eventually went to his own accounts, CID says. It has also alleged that Gupta accepted Rs 60 crore as commission from other suppliers.
Gupta had quit IAS in the year 2003 to start his own business. He runs a group company of the Neesa Group which runs hotels. He had also started a Hindi channel called Jano Duniya which is defunct.
