On April 2, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested suspended Central Board of Excise and Customs chairman B P Verma, his son Siddharth and a woman named Bhavna Pandey, on charges of corruption.

Pandey, who was then listed as 'alleged accomplice', is now emerging as a central figure in the case. When initially contacted, she claimed she had not been arrested by the CBI in the Verma bribery case and, hence, did not see the need to hire an advocate.

The CBI, on its part, is maintaining a studied silence on her precise role in the Verma case. As of now, the investigative agency has only alleged that, besides certain documents relating to transfers and postings which were recovered from her house, she used to collect money from clients on B P Verma's behalf.

When Pandey first moved into K-9F at the Delhi Development Authority's Self Financing Flats as a tenant in 1995, she had virtually nothing she could call her own. Within no time, though, she became friendly with the flat's owner. Soon, she stopped paying the rent. Pandey also took advantage of the fact that the owner had a feud with his sisters over the flat's ownership. She told him she was not going to move and that his only alternative was to sell her the flat, alleges a neighbour. In 1996, she finally bought the flat, which was worth Rs 2,500,000, for somewhere between Rs 300,000 to Rs 500,000.

Pandey, her neighbours claim, also flaunted her friendship with certain police officers. But she ran out of luck when she was arrested for breaking the window panes of an automobile shop, In Times. The police were compelled to take action when its owner, Suresh Kumar, filed a complaint against her. As proof, her neighbours showed rediff.com copies of the Jansatta report that appeared at the time.

Pandey, obviously, is not very popular with her neighbours. "She loves showing off her money," claimed another neighbour. "Recently, she boasted about how she got two of her sisters married (Bhavna's father died of a heart attack when she was very young. The rest of her family consists of six sisters, one brother and her mother.) She could be heard on the phone, telling people to keep one or two petis (suitcases) ready if they wanted to get their work done. Initially, she bought a secondhand Maruti, but now she drives around in Mitsubishi Lancers. She plays music so loudly that people are not be able to sleep at night. But I have to admit, I have not seen any bigwigs come to her house."

It is clear, though, that, if no one trusted Pandey, she did not trust anyone. A spy camera has been fitted above her front door. "Another camera keeps an eye on her Lancers," says a neighbour who has a running feud with her. "She has recently renovated her house, changed the entire floor and added a room at a time when (Urban Development Minister) Jagmohan was carrying out demolitions all over Delhi. She would hold Diwali melas in the locality and make money from it," alleged another neighbour.

Pandey's advocate, R S Dhaka, told rediff.com the CBI charges against his client were "totally baseless and fabricated. This is a political move to malign my client because she was working as a campaign manager for Shyama Sinha, wife of Delhi's then police commissioner Nikhil Kumar. Some cases registered against her are motivated and biased."

Bhavna Pandey defended herself in no uncertain terms. "What do I tell you? Mere ko phasaya ja raha hai (I have been trapped)," she told the media from the window of the police van in which she was being brought to the Tees Hazari courts. "My only fault is that I know B P Verma. I am in no way involved in this case."

Then, the window was shut. The media could no longer hear what she was saying. The policemen accompanying her did, it seems, have their orders.

Design: Dominic Xavier

The Rediff Specials