Delhi court grants bail to 5 accused in corruption case at Burari Transport Authority

New Delhi, Sep 9 (IANS) A Delhi court has granted bail to five individuals who were arrested in a corruption case involving the Burari Transport Authority.

The case centres on allegations of fraudulent transfer of auto permits using forged documents, which resulted in a loss of government revenue.

The judge noted that the majority of other accused persons, facing more severe allegations than those against these five individuals, had already been granted bail.

Therefore, it was deemed that no useful purpose is likely to be served by keeping the accused in judicial custody.

The court said that the accused "cannot be kept in judicial custody for such a long time", and granted bail to Anil Sethi, Ravinder Kumar, Anoop Sharma, Ajit Kumar, and Deepak Chawla, who were arrested on June 29.

As a condition of bail, the judge imposed several requirements on the accused persons, such as not going within 500 meters of the Burari Transport Authority without prior permission from the court, avoiding any attempt to contact or influence witnesses in the case, whether directly or indirectly, not tampering with evidence related to the case.

The Anti Corruption Branch of the Delhi Police alleged that a cap was placed on auto-rickshaw permits in Delhi, limited to one lakh permits.

It further claimed that 70 per cent of these permits were being traded illegally due to a nexus between financiers, auto-rickshaw dealers, touts, and officials of the Burari Transport Authority.

The investigation revealed that this nexus exploited a faceless scheme introduced during the Covid-19 epidemic to facilitate the illegal transfer of thousands of auto-rickshaw permits.

This included the transfer of permits belonging to deceased or untraceable individuals, resulting in substantial revenue losses for the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

The scheme also led to the exploitation and harassment of auto-rickshaw owners in Delhi.