New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday granted pre-arrest bail to former Noida Authority chief engineer Yadav Singh, giving him protection from arrest by the CBI in a corruption case in which he allegedly executed 1,280 maintenance contracts worth Rs 954 crore in eight days in December 2011.
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and R Mahadevan directed Singh to report to the investigating officer of the case on the 7th day of each month and cooperate with the trial. Additional Solicitor General Vikramjeet Banerjee, appearing for the CBI, submitted that the apprehension of the agency is that the petitioner might flee abroad from the process of justice.
Senior advocate, Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Singh, said that petitioner has already deposited his passport with the CBI. "With the passport having been surrendered and the aforesaid conditions, we deem it appropriate to order that in the event, the Police wish to arrest the petitioner (Yadav Singh) in connection with the case, upon furnishing bail bond of Rs 50,000 with two local sureties of like amount, to the satisfaction of the Arresting Officer, he shall be released on bail," the bench said.
On October 25, 2019, the top court had granted bail to Yadav Singh in a separate and consequential money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate. In 2015, the ED had slapped money laundering charges against Singh, who was engineer-in-chief of the Noida Authority, Greater Noida Authority and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, on the basis of an FIR lodged by the CBI.
Earlier, the Income Tax department had said the raid in November 2014 had revealed that Singh's assets were hugely disproportionate to his income, following which he was suspended by the then Uttar Pradesh government. In July 2015, the Allahabad High Court had directed the CBI to investigate the case stating that the allegations were most serious.
