Now,
Sardinha faces FIR
Rupesh Samant
6 January 2004
Goa police today registered first information report (FIR)
against Goa's former chief minister Fransisco Sardinha, in
the controversial Rs 150 crore bond issue.
A Congressman, Mr Sardinha, was earlier implicated by one-man
Arvind Bhatikar commission for doing undue favour to a private
firm while floating the bonds.
The FIR was registered against Mr Sardinha on Monday under
section 420 of Indian Penal Code, under charges of corruption,
wrongful gain and wrongful loss to the state.
The bond issue was earlier referred by the government to the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) where it remained without
much progress for about a year.
Recently, the government had recalled the file and decided
to hand over the matter to CID Crime Branch for investigations.
``We have registered FIR against Sardinha and investigation
is in progress,'' confirmed Mr Nelson Raposo, public relation
officer of Goa police.
CID's FIR is based on the prima facie evidence in the charges
levelled in the one man commission report which questioned
the role played by Mr Sardinha. The commission was appointed
by chief minister, Mr Manohar Parrikar, on January 31, 2001
to look into the acts of ommission and commission of then
government in sanctioning the bond issue.
Police officials stated that with the filing of FIR all the
documents, papers, files pertaining to the bonds issue will
be taken into custody. More persons are likely to be nailed
in this connection.
Police contended that the role of finance department in not
following procedures, disobeying existing rules, granting
favours will also be assessed during investigation.
Then chief minister, Sardinha, had okayed the proposal of
then Finance secretary for renewing ICICI's agreement for
two more years on August 8, 2000. Exactly a month later, he
directed the finance department to accept M/s Triveni consultants
limited to raise the funds through issue of bonds worth Rs
150 crore, at a commission of 0.9 per cent.
The one-man commission had observed that Triveni had sent
proposal to Sardinha barely a day after renewing ICICI agreement.
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