Charges framed against Jaitly

In this case,journalists posing as representatives of Westend offered to sell hand-held thermal imagers to the Army. In order to push the deal through they had met Army officers and bureaucrats,including all three accused,and offered them bribes. The conversations were recorded on tape and subsequently made public,along with the other Westend sting operations,at a press conference in 2001.

In 2006,the CBI submitted a chargesheet against Jaitly,Murgai and Pacherwal,accusing them of exercising personal influence with public servants in order to get supply orders in favour of Westend for the thermal imagers. The chargesheet alleged that Jaitly had taken Rs 2 lakh as illegal gratification in order to push the contracts through while several payments were made to Murgai. Pacherwal,it said,had set up the meeting between Jaitly and Westend.

In an order issued on February 28,Special CBI Judge Kanwal Jeet Arora said that a prima facie case was made out against all three accused under section 120B criminal conspiracy of the IPC and section 9 of The Prevention of Corruption Act. On the basis of material placed on record by the prosecution,I am of the opinion that prima facie it appears that all the three accused8230; had entered into a criminal conspiracy for taking illegal gratification as a motive or reward for exercise of personal influence with the public servant in order to get supply orders for defence equipment8230; in favour of m/s Westend International,London, the court said.