CBI has sent intercepted phone conversations to the Central Forensic Science laboratory to identify the voices of suspects in the Rs 10 crore railway bribery scandal before it questions sacked Railway Minister Pawan Bansal.
CBI sources said the agency has also sought the opinion of CFSl to identify the persons who are part of conversations intercepted by the agency in its surveillance exercise spanning over two months in which over 1,000 phone calls were tapped.
The sources said the agency is planning to question Bansal soon and it wants to ascertain his voice before that. The CBI also plans to use these intercepts to further its investigation into the cash-for-post scam in which the nephew of Bansal, Vijay Singla, and suspended Railway Board Member Mahesh Kumar were arrested.
Some of these tapped conversations were used by the agency to seek the remand of the accused arrested in connection with the bribery scandal. CBI has identified for closer scrutiny 500 phone calls from out of the 1,000 intercepted calls mainly among the four arrested accused.
According to the tapes, these calls were among four key players in the scandal — Kumar, Singla and middlemen Manjunath and Sandeep Goyal.
There were calls in which Singla is purported to be assuring Kumar that the work would be done. Kumar was allegedly assured that he will get the lucrative post of Member (Electrical) in return for “pecuniary gratification.”
Singla was in touch with Kumar for elevation as Member (electrical), considered a lucrative post.