Government not to re-look at cases handled by CLB’s tainted Vasudevan

The government today said it will not reopen the investigations handled by arrested Company Law Board member R Vasudevan when he was heading the inspection department of the ministry of corporate affairs.

Vasudevan, who was director investigation and inspection ministry of corporate affairs before joining the CLB three months ago, was looking into high profile cases like the Satyam and the Sesa Goa fraud.

The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Vasudevan, who is also the presiding chairman of the quasi-judicial CLB, after catching him ''red handed'' accepting Rs7 lakh as a bribe from the publishers of Amar Ujala, a regional paper, for giving an order in its favour.

Two other persons who acted as conduits for the money - Manoj Banthia, a company secretary, and Ankur Chawla, an advocate - have also been arrested. The money was allegedly being delivered by company secretary Banthia to Vasudevan's official home in Hudco Place, New Delhi, when he was caught.

After registering a case on information from a source, CBI started monitoring Vasudevan's activities, during which it got information that he would be given Rs7 lakh by a company secretary to give a favourable order in a dispute between the management and staff of the media house.

According to CBI, the lawyer Chawla had approached Banthia with Rs10 lakh to get the case settled in favour of the daily's management. Banthia kept Rs 3 lakh. Chawla's name is also in the FIR.