TNNPanaji: The Bombay high court issued notice to the state crime branch and others in a petition by former chief minister Digambar Kamat seeking to arraign three chargesheet witnesses as accused in the Louis Berger bribery case of 2015. He went to the high court after the trial court in Jan rejected his plea to make the three witnesses accused.Kamat’s advocate told the high court at the hearing earlier this month that they should be made accused as they made statements and accepted they had allegedly given a bribe. He said he was chief minister at the time and that the contract was looked after by the then PWD minister, and that he was not involved at all and had not accepted a single pie. Except for these three witnesses, there is nothing against him, his advocate told the high court.The high court granted Kamat liberty to make an application to the trial court for deferment of framing of charge.“If such an application is made, the trial court may defer the matter beyond the returnable date fixed by this court in this matter,” the high court stated.Kamat is seeking to arraign three witnesses Ramprasad Malladi, Sanjay Jindal, and Prasanna Shah named in the chargesheet as accused.Kamat had contended that the IO selectively chose to implicate him and others without implicating these three persons.
