The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested two senior All India Services officers for corruption.
B L Agrawal, a principal secretary in the Chhattisgarh government, was arrested for allegedly bribing people to help him wriggle out of corruption cases pending against him, while J P Singh, a former joint director of in Enforcement Directorate, was held for accepting illegal gratification to favour the accused in the Indian Premiere League betting scam.
A senior IAS officer, Agrawal was arrested with his brother-in-law Anand Agrawal from Raipur, while an alleged middleman Bhagwan Singh was apprehended in New Delhi, CBI sources said.
They said the CBI had seized 2 kg gold and Rs 39 lakh in cash from the alleged middleman during search operations.
It is alleged that Agrawal, an IAS officer of 1988 batch, wanted to ‘settle’ the CBI cases against him which were lodged in 2010 when he was the state’s health secretary.
He has been charge-sheeted in one case, while a probe is on in the other.
Agrawal, in a desperate bid to save himself, was alleged to have approached Bhagwan Singh, a Noida resident, who took him to Syed Burhanuddin. Burhanuddin, who claimed to be working in the Prime Minister’s Office, assured him help.
Burhanuddin aka O P Singh aka O P Sharma demanded Rs 1.5 crore as illegal gratification for the services he promised to render, the CBI first information report has alleged.
The trio met on February 11 this year and Agrawal agreed to make the payment.
It is alleged that Agrawal sent Rs 60 lakh in four instalments to Bhagwan Singh using hawala channels. However, later he expressed inability to arrange cash for paying the remainder after which Burhanuddin and Singh agreed to accept 2 kg of gold as bribe, the FIR alleged.
Agrawal asked his brother-in-law Anand to deliver gold to Singh, the CBI FIR alleged.
After registering a case under Section 120(b) of the Indian Penal Code relating to criminal conspiracy and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act against Agrawal, Singh and Burhanuddin, the CBI launched search operations in various places.
“After registering the case, CBI carried out searches at the premises of accused persons and hawala operators in Raipur, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Greater Noida. An amount of Rs 39 lakh (approximately) earlier delivered to private person (r/o Greater Noida) at New Delhi, has also been recovered during searches,” CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said.
In another case, J P Singh, a 2000-batch Indian Revenue Service officer of the Customs and Excise wing, was arrested along with three others -- Sanjay (enforcement officer), Vimal Aggarwal and Chandresh Patel.
The arrest took place nearly 18 months after the CBI lodged a case of alleged bribery for favouring an accused in an IPL betting case.
After registering a case in September 2015, the CBI had carried out searches at various places in Mumbai and registered a case against Singh in Ahmedabad.
Singh, who was then posted as joint director in the Enforcement Directorate, was later repatriated to his parent cadre and was currently additional commissioner (Customs and Excise Department) in the Northeast.
The CBI had said in the FIR that some ED officers while investigating the cases of money laundering in betting and other such activities had allegedly demanded and accepted ‘huge’ illegal gratification from the accused and suspects.
The ED's Ahmedabad unit was probing the Rs 2,000-crore IPL betting scandal and Rs 5,000 crore money laundering case against alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta in which the suspects allegedly sought favours from the officers, official sources said.
The CBI claimed huge bribe was paid to these officers in return for favours.
After the ED director received multiple complaints about the bribe demanded by the officers, he had forwarded those to the CBI for investigation.
The four were on Tuesday produced before a court in New Delhi which granted the CBI their transit remand to enable it to produce them before a special court in Ahmedabad.
Meanwhile, the Chhattisgarh government suspended B L Agrawal following his arrest.
‘On receipt of a report of his formal arrest by CBI, Chief Minister Raman Singh placed B L Agrawal under suspension with immediate effect,’ an official statement said.
Notably, Agrawal had been suspended earlier in 2010 after his houses were raided by the Income Tax department. However, it was later revoked.
IMAGE: IAS officer B L Agarwal, centre, who was arrested by the CBI in an alleged bribery case, coming out after being produced in Patiala Court in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo
