CBI grills Dixit for second day

13 Feb2010 JAIPUR: A day after five locations belonging to Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) secretary Sanjay Dixit and history-sheeter Ranjeet Singh Panwar were raided in a passport verification case, CBI sleuths on Friday interrogated Dixit, who is a senior IAS officer.

CBI officials they were only questioning Dixit and examining the documents seized from his locations on Thursday and it was early days yet to say whether he would be arrested. "We are examining the documents recovered during raids on Thursday," CBI spokesperson in Jaipur Atul Gupta told TOI.
After the raids, CBI had claimed it had seized documents proving a nexus between Dixit and Singh after which rumors were ripe that the IAS officer might be arrested. Dixit is secretary, command area development (CAD), in the state administration.
Gupta said he had been interrogated on Thursday and this continued on Friday. "He is being questioned about his relations with Panwar," Gupta added.
A CBI source claimed that as of now, there was no decision on whether Dixit will be arrested. "The investigation will take time and whether he would be arrested or not will be decided only after that," said the source. The CBI officials said that apart from documents, they recovered Rs 45,000 from his government bungalow in Gandhi Nagar.
CBI on Thursday carried out raids at five locations, including the residence and office of Dixit and Ranjeet Singh Panwar. The raids were conducted following a high court order that was passed a fortnight ago in a passport verification case.
Dixit had allegedly ensured a passport for Singh under the tatkal scheme by issuing him a verification certificate despite the fact that the latter had many criminal cases pending against him. The Jaipur police had arrested Singh from IGI Airport in New Delhi in July 2007 when he was flying to China as a member of a sports' delegation.
Meanwhile, Dixit and his camp are perplexed at the CBI action, claiming that agency's promptness smacked of vendetta as allegations could have been probed without creating such a hue and cry. "Ranjeet Singh is a politician and he has his relations in the sports fraternity too. The cases against him are politically motivated and he is not a criminal," said a Dixit sympathiser.
He alleged that a former RCA functionary was pushing the CBI to take harsh action against Dixit mainly to defame him at a time when the country's cricketing fraternity is keenly watching developments Jaipur, which is to host the first India-South Africa ODI on February 21.
"The second ODI between the two countries originally scheduled at Kanpur has already been shifted to Gwalior as there were reports about poor arrangements at Green Park in Kanpur. So all eyes are now focused on Jaipur as the fraternity wants a decent kick-off to the ODI series. But there is an effort to defame Dixit when RCA and Jaipur are in the limelight," said the Dixit sympathiser.