MUMBAI – The anti-corruption branch of the CBI arrested four persons including former member of legislative council Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and CBI retainer counsel Mandar Goswami for allegedly accepting bribe to dilute Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam probe.
Gidwani is one of the promoters of Adarsh Society. The CBI also arrested Gidwani’s son Kailash and a tax consultant JK Jagiasi.
The trio — booked for criminal conspiracy and charges of corruption– was produced before the CBI court on Tuesday. The court remanded them to CBI custody till March 16.
The CBI in its remand application alleged that Jagiasi, a Worli-based tax consultant along with Gidwani– one of the 14 accused in Adarsh scam — entered into a criminal conspiracy. Gidwani allegedly paid a sum of Rs 1.25 crore to Jagiasi to influence the CBI official probing the case. Out of the said amount R25 lakh was reportedly paid to Goswami.
Earlier on February 20, Jagiasi was arrested in connection with another bribery case. He had allegedly asked an Air India official, accused in one case, to pay a bribe of Rs 50 lakh for dilution of case.
Subsequently, the CBI had seized Jagiasi’s account books as part of its investigation. The agency said the cash book had entries of transactions between Gidwani, Jagiasi and Goswami. During his questioning, the sleuths found that he had approached other accused, including Gadwani, for bribe for dilution of case.
“Jaigiasi was granted bail in the earlier (Air India) case. However, on Monday he was arrested again in the present case,” said his lawyer IA Bagaria.
