The 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) that were held in the Indian capital of Delhi were marred by scandals in the form of a lackluster organizing committee. The chief of the organizing committee Suresh Kalmadi was subsequently taken to court and has now been charged with cheating and conspiracy. There are 10 other people against whom charges have been framed as well.
Lalit Bhanot was a former organizing committee member against whom the charges were laid. The case pertained to financial irregularities in regard to the Rs 141 crore contract, which included charges for scoring, time and the records system at the CWG.
There are 3 companies and 8 accused that have been handed down the charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and other offenses such as destruction of evidence and criminal intimidation. One of the central issues of the case revolved around Swiss Times Omega, which was illegally awarded a contract for the Timing-Scoring-Result (TSR) system amounting to Rs 141 crore, which caused the public exchequer to suffer a loss of over Rs 95 crore.
Kalmadi was described as being the mastermind behind the plot and was also joined by director general of procurement Surjit Lal, joint director general of sports A.S.V Prasad, V.K. Verma, who is the Olympic Committee’s director general and the treasurer M. Jayachandran.
The court will be taking up the case on January 10, 2013.
