Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS) Lt. Gen. retd) Tejinder Singh Wednesday moved a Delhi court seeking cancellation of the bail granted to former Indian Army chief Gen. V.K. Singh and four other army officers in a defamation case filed by him.

Tejinder Singh’s advocate Anil Aggarwal contended that all the five officers might tamper with the evidence as four of the five accused had not appeared in court.

“As per the last order, they (accused) should have been present in the court today. I am moving an application for cancellation of bail. If they (accused) are set at large, they are likely to tamper with the evidence,” he told Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja.

Tejinder Singh filed a case against the former army chief and four other officers for allegedly making libellous statements against him to the media and accusing him of bribery in an all-terrain truck purchase deal of the army.

Alleging that the officers misused their official position, power and authority to level false charges against him, Tejinder Singh named Army Vice Chief Lt. Gen. S.K. Singh, Director General Military Intelligence Lt. Gen. B.S. Thakur, Additional Director General Public Information Maj. Gen. S.L. Narsimhan and Directorate General of Public Information Staff Officer Lt. Col. Hitten Sawhney.

The court had earlier granted bail to former army chief and the four serving officers.

Sawhney was the only accused who appeared before the court Wednesday and all the other accused moved applications through their counsel for exemption from personal appearance.

The court listed their pleas for hearing Aug 24.

“Accused number one (V.K. Singh), two (S.K. Singh), three (Thakur) and four (Narsimhan) are exempted for today only. Application filed by accused number two, three, four and five (Sawhney) for grant of permanent exemption till further orders is taken on record,” the judge said.

Former army chief V.K.Singh had disclosed in a press release that he was offered a kickback of Rs.14 crore by a retired defence officer in exchange for clearing a tranche of 600 all-terrain Tatra trucks for the army, which he described as sub-standard.

Denying all the allegations, Tejinder Singh had said that in the press release of March 5 the Army Headquarters publicly accused him and a group of serving officers of the military intelligence of conspiring to create a rift between the army chief and the government.