CBI arrests Senior Railways officer, two others for demanding bribe of Rs 1 crore

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has nabbed a senior railway engineering service officer of 1985 batch along with two others in an alleged bribery case of Rs 1 crore, officials said on Sunday.

A CBI officer said, "The arrested railway officer has been identified as Mahendra Singh Chauhan and the amount has also been recovered."

The official said that the CBI busted a racket on the allegations that some senior public functionaries of North Eastern Frontier Railways were involved in corrupt practices with private contractors for the on-going projects in the North Eastern Frontier Railways.

He said that the contractors were allegedly being facilitated in awarding the contracts processing of subsequent bills and release of payments by the public functionaries in lieu of illegal gratifications.

CBI has registered a case against Chauhan, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)/Construction-II, North East Frontier Railways, Maligaon, Hem Chand Borah, Deputy Chief Engineer, Laxmi Kant Verma, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEN) and Pawan Baid, Director, ABCI Infrastructures Pvt. Ltd, Bhupendra Rawat, an employee of ABCI Infrastructures Pvt. Ltd., a private person Indra Singh and other unknown persons under relevant sections of IPC and PC Act.

It was alleged that the accused were abusing their official position for obtaining illegal gratification. It was further alleged that the said Director of a private company was in contact with said CAO in various on-going projects in NFR region. It was also alleged that on his demand, the said Director through his employee got delivered a bribe of Rs1 crore to the relative(private person) of said CAO at his residence in Dehradun.

The officer said that it was alleged that the accused were abusing their official position for obtaining illegal gratification.

It was further alleged that the said Director of private company was in contact with said CAO in various on-going projects in NFR region.

He said it was also alleged that on his demand, the said Director through his employee got delivered a bribe of Rs one crore to the relative (private person) of said CAO at his residence in Dehradun.

"The accused allegedly exchanging bribe money were caught and the alleged bribe of Rs one crore was recovered," the official said.

CBI teams carried out searches at 21 locations including Delhi, Uttrakhand, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal which led to the recovery of cash of Rs 54 lakh.

"An alleged bribe of Rs 60 lakh, which was earlier paid to said Chauhan has also been recovered," he added.