Indian Sports Czar Kalmadi Out on Bail after Nine-Month Jail

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI (NNN-Bernama) -- An Indian court today granted bail to former Delhi Commonwealth Games organising chairman Suresh Kalmadi after the sports czar spent almost nine months behind bars.

Kalmadi, allegedly involved in a massive scam in awarding multi-million ringgit contracts before the games, is expected to walk out of Tihar Jail soon, where he was lodged since his arrest in April last year.

His lawyer, Hitesh Jain, told the media outside the court that the 66-year-old would leave Tihar, either by this evening or tomorrow.

The Delhi High Court awarded bail, with a surety of RM30,000, to Kalmadi, an influential Indian sports figure and also Pune member of parliament, in his home state of Maharashtra.

India's top probe agency, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), foundKalmadi, along with nine others, guilty in giving contract to a Swiss company to install the Timing-Scoring-Result (TSR) system for the mega event. --NNN-BERNAMA