Payment email shown by Kalmadi ‘doctored’

The email that Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman, Mr Suresh Kalmadi, cited to justify payment of a large sum of money to a London-based company is not authentic.

This is what the ministry of external affairs is understood to have conveyed to Mr Kalmadi when he called on the external affairs minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, here Tuesday.

The MEA confronted Mr Kalmadi with the original email sent by the Indian high commission in London, which was different from the email cited by him. Mr Kalmadi was told that the Indian high commission in London had not recommended the company, AM Films, for providing services during the Queen’s Baton Relay held in London on October 29 last year.

Mr Kalmadi had shown an email sent by a junior official of the Indian high commission in London to justify payment to AM Films.

The original email sent along with an explanatory note to the MEA implies that the email might have been manipulated.

The CWG Organising Committee had paid AM Films over Rs 3 crore (or about £4.5 lakh) for services rendered during the Queen’s Baton Relay inauguration without tendering procedure.

Meanwhile, the Congress gave the Union urban development minister, Mr S. Jaipal Reddy, the Union sports minister, Mr M.S. Gill, and Ms Sheila Dikshit a clean chit in connection with the alleged irregularities.

However, it distanced itself from Mr Kalmadi saying, “Suresh Kalmadi is on the OC not as a Congress representative but as the chairman of the Indian Olympic Association.”

He will reply to the corruption allegations levelled against the Organising Committee, it said.