New Delhi, Mar 5: A Delhi court today ordered trial of former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly and two others for allegedly taking bribe to influence a “fictitious” defence deal in 2000.
Special CBI Judge Kawal Jeet Arora put Jaitely, her erstwhile party colleague Gopal Pacherwal and retired Major General S P Murgai on trial after they pleaded “not guilty” to the charges framed by the court against them for conspiring with each other and “accepting gratification” for obtaining supply order of defence equipment in favour of a private firm.
The court framed charges against the trio for offences of criminal conspiracy under the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) dealing with ‘taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant'.
“Charge for offence under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC read with section 9 (taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (be) framed against all the three accused namely Jayalakshmi Jaitly, Major General S P Murgai (Retd) and Gopal K Pacherwal, which is read over and explained to them, to which they have pleaded not guilty,” it said.
The court fixed April 20 for the commencement of trial against the three when recording of statements of prosecution witnesses would begin. The court has summoned three witnesses for recording of their testimony on April 20.
The case against Jaitly and the other two was lodged on the basis of a sting, ‘Operation Westend,' conducted by newsportal tehelka.com in 2000, purportedly exposing alleged corruption in defence deals.
