Judeo is charged 2 yrs after cash on camera

While Judeo and his aide Natwar Rateria have been booked for allegedly accepting bribes (Rs 9 lakh), four others, Bhupendra Singh Patel (who appeared in the tapes as Rahul), Amit Jogi (former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi’s son), Arvind Vijaymohan and Rajat Prasad have been named in the chargesheet as bribe-givers.

While Judeo has been booked under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the bribe-givers have been booked under Section 12.

Two years ago, The Indian Express had printed transcripts of the Judeo tapes which exposed the then Union Minister accepting bribes and raising bundles of cash to his forehead from masked bribe-givers, ostensibly for help in getting mining contracts in Chhattisgarh.

The taping was done in a hotel in New Delhi shortly before the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections and the CBI first registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) and then in December 2003, an FIR.

The CBI had also asked for a video forensic report from the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science laboratory which proved that the 35-minute video tape tapes—handed over to the agency by The Indian Express—were authentic and not doctored.

The chargesheet has been filed by the CBI even as two of the accused, Bhupendra Singh Patel and Arvind Vjaymohan, have filed an appeal for quashing of charges. It’s pending in the Supreme Court. They had earlier lost a case in the Delhi High Court, the filing of which, CBI officials say, delayed the chargehseet. CBI officials say they decided to chargesheet the bribe-givers as well since their motives behind the sting against Judeo were political and since the accused made no attempts to identify themselves and in fact, did not cooperate during the probe.

The conspiracy, in fact, unspooled thanks to a SIM card provided to the CBI by Rateria which led the agency to identify Patel as the Rahul of the tapes. Later, when Rateria was questioned, he admited that the bribe handed over to Judeo was Rs 9 lakh.