Court grants bail to Railways official in Rail Neer scam

Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officer Sandeep Silas, arrested along with two others in connection with alleged corruption in supply of packaged drinking water in Rajdhani and other superfast trains, was granted bail today by a Delhi court.

Judge Vinod Kumar granted the relief to Silas, a 1984-batch IRTS officer, on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the like amount considering that his statement has already been recorded by CBI in detail and he has given the explanation with respect to his alleged role in the case, reported PTI.

"I have considered the submissions and I have also perused the case diaries and police record. The statement of accused Sandeep Silas has been recorded by investigating officer (IO) in detail in which he has given explanation in respect of his role in the present matter," said the judge.

"Without expressing any opinion on the merit of his explanation, I am of the opinion that it would not be appropriate to withhold the benefit of bail to the applicant especially when he fully cooperated with IO in his five days police remand," the judge added.

The court had earlier granted bail to co-accused M S Chalia, also an IRTS officer of 1987 batch. It had however, dismissed the bail plea of businessman Sharan Bihari Aggarwal, owner of R K Associates.

These three accused were arrested by CBI in the case in which it has alleged that supply of other brands of packaged water had resulted in a loss of Rs 6.25 crores to Railways.

CBI has alleged that Silas and Chalia had conspired with Aggrawal and instead of taking Rail Neer, they had allowed some private firms to supply bottled water in the trains, which resulted in a loss to the exchequer.

It is also said that searches were conducted during the probe in which approximately Rs 28 crore cash was recovered, out of which around Rs four lakh was counterfeit.