New Delhi: Months before coming under the Central Bureau of Investigation’s scanner over bribery allegations, a Shimla-based assistant director-level officer of the Enforcement Directorate and his banker brother had allegedly gone on a shopping spree, amassing assets worth more than twice their legitimate sources of income.
At the end of March 2024, the two had cumulative assets worth Rs 9.20 lakh, the figure shooting up to Rs 44.44 lakh by the end of December the same year, according to the CBI. They earned a combined income of Rs 40.28 lakh during that period, but spent Rs 98.24 lakh.
The CBI has made these new details public in its latest FIR, lodged a year after it first filed two cases against the brothers, named Vishal Deep and Vikas Deep. At the centre of this new disproportionate assets case are a flat in Chandigarh, and three cars, including a Jeep Compass and a Volkswagen Virtus, allegedly used to collect bribes in the Chandigarh bribery case from last December.
The anti-corruption agency had arrested Vikas, a manager at Punjab National Bank, in Chandigarh a year ago, while he was there to allegedly collect a bribe of Rs 55 lakh from two accused of money laundering in connection with the Himachal Pradesh scholarship case. Vishal was arrested weeks later in Mumbai.
Vishal was granted bail by the Supreme Court last month, while Vikas got bail via a Punjab and Haryana High Court order earlier this month. The CBI had arrested its own Deputy Superintendent of Police-level officer for assisting the brothers in the alleged bid to extract bribes from the accused being probed by Vishal as an investigating officer.
ThePrint had previously reported that Vishal was on deputation to the ED from the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), and had been at the Shimla sub-zonal office since November 2023. Sources within the agency said that he had been appointed the investigating officer for a particular case a couple of months before the emergence of the bribery allegations against himself last year.
It is the third time in less than a year that CBI has booked the brothers—this time on grounds of holding assets disproportionate to their legal income. This comes months after the agency initiated a preliminary enquiry against them in August this year. The CBI further suspects that their family members were also involved in the overall plot.
“In view of the huge cash recovery and suspicious high-value transactions in the bank accounts of family members of Sh. Vishal Deep and Sh. Vikas Deep, the role of family members in abetment, if any, cannot be ruled out at this stage. Hence, the role of family members may also be looked into during the course of investigation,” the latest FIR reads.
Also Read: Excise case: EOW cites ‘coal deal bid for brother-in-law’ to show influence of Bhupesh Baghel’s son
What new FIR says
On 25 December last year, the CBI was chasing Vikas and one Niraj, who was allegedly acting as a middleman between the ED assistant director and the money laundering accused, who had agreed to pay the bribe. However, Niraj and the accused in the money laundering probe had alerted the CBI about Vikas’s alleged bribe demand.
In its chargesheet last year, the CBI had said that the middleman revealed he was travelling in Vikas’s Mahindra Scorpio and collected a bribe of Rs 55 lakh from Aerocity Road in Zirakpur on the outskirts of Chandigarh, before heading to Panchkula.
In Panchkula, Vishal was allegedly waiting for his brother in his Volkswagen Virtus. While the CBI tracked the trio including the middleman, it managed to nab Vikas, and Vishal escaped.
In its latest FIR, the CBI had said that Vishal had purchased the same Volkswagen between 31 March and 31 December for a total price of Rs 13.72 lakh, for which he had taken a vehicle loan of Rs 12.99 lakh.
Similarly, Vikas had purchased a Scorpio for Rs 24.71 lakh, with a loan of Rs 22.23 lakh. Since both assets were bought on loan, the agency valued the Scorpio at Rs 2.48 lakh and the Volkswagen at Rs 73,661, as of 2024-end.
During the same period, the CBI further said in the FIR, the brothers earned a total income of Rs 40.28 lakh, including income from the sale of land in Hisar for Rs 16.58 lakh. Vishal earned Rs 10.67 lakh, and his brother earned Rs 12.88 lakh from Punjab National Bank.
However, within that period, Vishal paid Rs 24.84 lakh for a Chandigarh flat valued at Rs 97 lakh, and spent approximately Rs 3.57 lakh on travel and leisure. He also paid Rs 2.89 lakh in instalments for a Jeep Compass car, and spent around Rs 33,000 on his stay at Chandigarh’s The LaLit in December 2024.
His brother, according to the FIR, had disposed of his liability for the Scorpio by depositing Rs 3.75 lakh into the loan account, drawn from freshly deposited Rs 5 lakh in a bank account held jointly with his wife. Vikas also invested Rs 7.95 lakh in stocks in the same time period, while spending around Rs 3 lakh on Amazon and MakeMyTrip, an analysis of the bank statements has revealed.
Apart from these transactions and the recovery of Rs 56.41 lakh during the raids last December, the CBI said it had also recovered Rs 14.73 lakh at a location in Gurgaon, which may be verified during further investigation.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
Also Read: A Dubai-bound shipment & a ‘bribe for arranging MEA approval’—CBI’s case against Lt Col & his wife