2 SC employees who took Rs 25,000 bribe sent to police custody

New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) Two Supreme Court of India
employees and another person, arrested by the Central Bureau
of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs
25,000 from a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) for listing an appeal
related to his wife's death for an early hearing, were Tuesday
remanded to one-day police custody by a Delhi court.

C Perumal and K S Badrinath, an Upper Divisional clerk
and Assistant grade employee, respectively, in the Supreme
Court registry, and another accused, K M Singh, were arrested
Monday night by CBI sleuths for demanding money from Dr Kunal
Saha, a US-based AIDS researcher.

The probe agency produced all the three accused before
Special CBI Judge S P Garg, who sent them to police custody
till Wednesday.

The CBI had sought two-day custodial interrogation of the
three accused submitting that there could be more unscrupulous
public servants involved in the case.

"The accused are influential persons. They did not reveal
anything since the time of their arrest," the CBI submitted,
adding it was yet to record the statement of witnesses as well
as complainant in the case.

The CBI, India's top investigating agency, invoked the
Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 120 B relating to the criminal
conspiracy and the Section 7 of Prevention of Corruption Act
dealing with illegal gratification against them, alleging they
had demanded Rs 75,000 for listing Saha's appeal against a
High Court order for early hearing in the apex court.

According to the CBI, Saha had filed an appeal against
the Calcutta High Court's order acquitting the doctors
allegedly responsible for death of his US-based wife Anuradha
Saha in 1998.

A trial court had held the doctors guilty in the case in
2002 but the High Court had acquitted them in 2004, it said.

Saha, who came to India from Ohio in the US on January
29, went on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar here
on February 6, demanding early hearing into an appeal before
the Supreme Court filed against the High Court's order.

He, however, filed a complaint with the CBI's
Anti-Corruption Branch Monday alleging that the three accused
were demanding money from him for the purpose.

Singh, allegedly acting as conduit for the two SC
employees, was arrested by the CBI from a hostel at K G Marg.
The other two accused were also arrested later.

The CBI also conducted searches at the residences of the
accused and claimed to have recovered Rs 1.67 lakh cash and
gold worth Rs 6.34 lakh from them.