New Delhi/Bhubaneswar, May 30 (PTI) The CBI has arrested a deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate in Odisha for allegedly taking a Rs 20 lakh bribe from a Bhubaneswar-based businessman, officials said on Friday.
Chintan Raghuvanshi allegedly demanded Rs 5 crore from businessman Ratikanta Rout, who has a stone mining business in Dhenkanal, for giving him “relief” in an ED case registered against him.
The agency conducted a trap operation following inputs that he was allegedly going to take the first installment of the bribe amount from Rout, the officials said.
The ED officer’s lawyer Siddhant Mohanty said in Bhubaneswar that a special CBI court has remanded Raghuvanshi to judicial custody for 14 days.
“However, his bail petition has not been rejected. It will be heard on June 4,” Mohanty said.
According to the CBI FIR, Rout approached the agency with a complaint that he was summoned for questioning at the ED office in Bhubaneswar in March this year. Raghuvanshi called him to his chamber and asked him to meet a person called Bhaghti to get “relief” in the case, it said.
Bhaghti had since then been in contact with him, putting pressure on him over Facetime to pay Raghuvanshi to settle the matter, it alleged. On May 27, Bhaghti allegedly met Rout and said Raghuvanshi had demanded Rs 5 crore for “not attaching his Hospital, not arresting him and to settle his case”, the FIR alleged.
Rout expressed his inability to arrange such a large sum. Bhagti then made him talk to Raghuvanshi who reduced the demand to Rs 2 crore, it said.
Raghuvanshi, a 2013 batch IRS officer of Customs and Indirect Taxes, was allegedly caught during the operation and later arrested after questioning, they said. PTI ABS AAM RBT
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