CBI court sends foodgrain scam accused to jail

LUCKNOW: A CBI court on Saturday has sent a foodgrain scam accused Uday Pratap Singh to jail under judicial custody till May 26. The CBI produced the accused at the residence of CBI judge RP Sharma.
The CBI on Friday had arrested Uday Pratap Singh, brother of sitting Samajwadi Party MLA from Gonda Awdhesh Pratap Singh in connection with the scam. The CBI team probing the scam summoned Uday Pratap Singh to its camp office in Gonda on Friday morning for questioning.After a series of grilling sessions, the CBI brought him to Lucknow and formally arrested him late in the evening on Friday.
Uday Pratap happens to be a transporter and was among the three Gonda transporters who have been found involved in the scam related to disposal of food grains worth Rs 8 crore that was to be distributed to the below poverty line families through the public distribution system. Allegations are that the foodgrain was sold away in the open market. The transporters who were supposed to transport the foodgrain stocks from the government godowns to PDS warehouses sold the stocks directly from the government godowns and the stocks never reached the PDS warehouses.
The CBI had earlier arrested Rajendra Singh and Shivbux Singh - two leading transporters of Gonda, about a week ago. It was on the basis of the interrogation of these two transporters that the CBI managed to gather evidence against Uday Pratap to establish his involvement in the scam. While the agency has detected that foodgrain scam in Lakhimpur was worth Rs 7 crore, in Gonda it was estimated to be around Rs 8 crore.
The scam had surfaced during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime. Investigators believe that the scam may turn out to be worth over Rs 1 lakh crore. More than 20 persons have been arrested so far by the CBI in connection with the scam from the two districts.