Top Maharashtra & Goa postal official in Rs2 crore bribery case

In what the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claims to be India’s biggest bribe trap case, the agency on Wednesday snared the chief postmaster general of Maharashtra and Goa while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs2 crore.

The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the CBI nabbed Manjit Singh Bali, one of the senior-most officers in the postal department, while he was accepting the bribe to issue a no-objection certificate (NoC) for some construction work.

A father-son duo — Arun and Harsh Dalmiya — which runs a consultancy firm in Nariman Point was also arrested by the CBI in connection with the case.

According to the CBI, Pravin Trivedi, a private builder, wanted to construct a building on a 2,000 square metre plot in the Mira Road-Bhayander area. Since Trivedi had agreed to develop 25% of it for the postal department by constructing a post office, he had to seek an NoC from Bali. Bali allegedly sought Rs2 crore to issue the certificate.

The CBI acted after receiving a complaint from Rita Shah, a three-time corporator and social worker. Shah had approached Bali in January requesting him to expedite the NoC for the construction of a post office in the area. Bali, through the Dalmiyas, had passed on the message to Shah that he needed Rs2 crore from Trivedi to issue the NoC.

Joint director of CBI Rishiraj Singh said Arun and Harsh Dalmiya were the middlemen brokering the deal between Bali and Trivedi. A trap was laid using Shah as the conduit, he added.

“The duo acted as middlemen and negotiated the deal. They received the money from Shah and were to hand it over to Bali,” he said. They asked Shah to meet them in their office where Harsh allegedly demanded the money from her. CBI officials said Bali’s cut in the deal was Rs1.5 crore.

Soon after the arrest, the CBI began conducting searches in Bali’s house at Colaba. The raiding CBI teams claimed to have recovered Rs34 lakh in foreign currency.  They also claimed to have traced Bali’s properties in Bhopal, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Delhi and Mumbai.  They have seized eight laptops from his residence which were sent for forensic and data analysis.

So far, the agency has identified investments worth Rs38 lakh and 22 bank accounts. “Since huge amounts of money, including foreign currency, have been recovered, we will also rope in other agencies to probe the same,’’ said Abhin Modak, superintendent, CBI. Agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate and income tax will also probe the case.