Sacked Assam minister remanded to 3-day CBI custody

4 Jun 2008, 1339 hrs IST,PTI

NEW DELHI: Sacked Assam Education Minister Ripun Borah and a co-accused were on Wednesday remanded to three days CBI custody by a Delhi court for allegedly offering a bribe of Rs 17 lakh to a CBI officer for influencing a murder probe.

"CBI plea seeking custodial interrogation of accused Ripun Borah and Ramesh K Maheshwari is justified. Since the fact and missing links of the circumstantial evidence are to be collected from Guwahati as well, I am of opinion that they be remanded to police custody till June 7," Additional Sessions Judge R K Yadav said.

"The accusations, justifying their arrest, are well founded. Conspiracy is hatched in darkness and that is to be probed during the thorough interrogation. Any missing link may impede the investigation," the court noted.

Allowing the plea of the investigating agency, the court said circumstances suggested that there was a conspiracy between Borah, Maheshwari and Mukul Pathak, a journalist, arrested at Guwahati airport to bribe a CBI official who was probing a murder case in which Borah was a suspect.

The CBI alleged that the minister, in his bid to wriggle out of the ongoing probe against him, tried to bribe Deputy Superintendent of Police A B Gupta, who was investigating the case.

According to the probe agency, Borah, along with conduit Pathak, had come to Delhi on June two and invited the official to an inn at Sunder Nagar in south Delhi.

The accused Minister asked Maheshwari, who was in the car outside the hotel, to come with a bag containing Rs 10 lakh inside the hotel and threw it in Room number 213. They were overpowered while fleeing from the spot, the CBI said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sacked_Assam_minister_remanded_to_3-day_CBI_custody/rssarticleshow/3099204.cms