City court issues summons to Bangaru Lakshman

New Delhi, Jul 26: A city court today issued summons to former BJP president Bangru Lakshman for allegedly taking a bribe from a private firm for defence procurement.

Patiala house court special judge Indermeet Kaur Kochchar issued notice to Mr Lakshman for August 7, 2006.

''There is enough of prima-facie evidence against Lakshman and thereby this court took the cognizance in issuing summons against Lakshman,'' Ms Kochchar said in her order.

Five years after the infamous Tehelka expose, the CBI on July 18, 2006 has filed its first chargesheet in the case against Lakshman, who was allegedly caught accepting money from fictitious arms dealers.

The chargesheet was filed under sections 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and some other sections of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.

The CBI, which was handed over the case only on December 6 2004, completed the investigations in 15 months. Lakshman had also fudged the accounts of the BJP by making a back-dated entry of the money received from the representatives of the fictitious company floated by the Tehelka web portal, the CBI alleged.

CBI sources said a personal secretary of Lakshman, Satyamurthy, had made a confessional statement under section 164 of CrPC before a magistrate alleging that back-dated entries were made in the BJP's account books to accommodate Rs one lakh allegedly taken by Lakshman from representatives of a fictitious weapon firm.

The CBI also had moved an application before the court for granting permission to make Satyamurthy an approver in the case and grant him pardon.

The CBI said Lakshman allegedly fudged the BJP's account books to accommodate the payment received from the ficticious firm, as he had claimed after Tehelka's sting operation that the money was meant for party funds.

UNI