New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Monday arrested two senior officials of the Northern Railway, Indian Railways on charges of accepting Rs 7 lakh in bribes in exchange for approving bills raised by Delhi-based private firms, a spokesperson for the agency said.
The public servants arrested were identified as Saket Chand Srivastava, a senior divisional electrical engineer, and Tapendra Singh Gurjar, a senior section engineer—both posted at the office of the Divisional Railway Manager in New Delhi.
The CBI also conducted searches at nine locations, including the official and residential premises of the two public servants. During these raids, the agency recovered gold ornaments worth approximately Rs 3.5 crore. Jewellery valued at around Rs 2.5 crore was found in a locker held in the name of Srivastava’s wife, the agency’s spokesperson added. In addition, cash worth approximately Rs 63 lakh was recovered Monday.
The development comes in the wake of the CBI registering a case under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against five individuals. These include Srivastava and Gurjar, as well as private persons such as Gautam Chawla and Saket Kumar of the Delhi-based private firms Vatsal Infotech and Shivmani Enterprises, respectively.
Chawla became the third individual to be apprehended by the agency, which is empowered to investigate corruption cases involving central government employees.
In the FIR, filed on the basis of source-based information, Gurjar revealed the bid rate for the Arc Fault Detection Device (AFDD) tender to Saket Kumar, director of the Ghaziabad-based firm Shivmani Enterprises, and stated that he facilitated the process of awarding the contract to the firm.
He also claimed that he assisted Kumar in securing orders for Portable Residual Current Device (PRCD) and AFDD tenders in exchange for a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh. The bribe amount was routed through a middleman whose bank account was used to deposit the money.
The CBI FIR also stated that Srivastava collected bribes amounting to Rs 1.2 crore from various railway contractors and enlisted the help of Kumar and Arun Jindal, his colleague in the DRM office, to convert the cash into gold.
“Shri Saket Kumar took the cash from Shri Saket Chand Srivastava, Sr. DEE (G) and converted the cash of Rs. 1.2 crores into gold from M/s Rama Krishna Jewellers, Lajpat Nagar and delivered the same to Shri Saket Chand Srivastava,” the FIR said.
“Source has further informed that Shri Arun Jindal, SSE is actively collecting bribe amounts, from various railway contractors, for himself and on behalf of Shri Saket Ghand Srivastava, Sr. DEE (G) for awarding of work orders to the rai|way contractors and clearing of their bills,” it added.
“A case was registered by CBI against seven accused including a Sr DEE and two SSEs of DRM Office, Northern Railway, New Delhi, Director of a Ghaziabad-based private company; said Ghaziabad-based private company; a private Railway vendor of Delhi-based company; said Delhi-based private company and unknown others. It was alleged that accused were indulging in corrupt and illegal activities in the matter of awarding work orders and clearing bills of various private entities in lieu of illegal gratifications,” the agency spokesperson said in a statement Monday.
“Searches were conducted by CBI at the residential and official premises of accused public servant at 9 locations which led to recovery of Rs. 63.85 lakh cash (approx.), gold ornaments valued at Rs. 96.26 lakh (approx.), documents relating to properties, mobiles, laptops/hard discs and statements showing payment of bribes by private persons to public servants. Operation of locker held by wife of accused Sr DEE further resulted in recovery of more jewellery items and gold bars worth over Rs. 2.5 crore,” the CBI spokesperson further said.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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