New Delhi, Aug 8: CBI on Wednesday arrested the two owners of Micromax mobiles when they were allegedly giving Rs30 lakh bribe to the engineers of North Delhi Municipal Corporation to obtain clearance for the construction of a banquet hall.
Along with Rajesh Agrawal and Manish Tuli, both of Micromax Informatics, CBI sleuths also arrested two junior officials of the municipal corporation and carried out searches at 15 locations including residential and official premises of the MCD officers.
CBI sources said they got a tip-off that Agrawal and Tuli had struck a deal with the engineers of the civic body to get clearance for construction of their banquet hall in Wazirpur area in exchange of Rs50 lakh.
The sources alleged that Agrawal and Tuli negotiated with the MCD officials and brought down the alleged bribe amount from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.
It was also agreed that the illegal gratification will be allegedly paid to the two junior officials of the civic body.
Soon after getting the tip off that the alleged bribe is to be paid at the Timarpur office of Agrawal and Tuli, a team of CBI rushed to the spot.
During the trap operation, the agency allegedly caught Tuli and Agrawal handing over Rs 30 lakh to the junior officials of the MCD who were there to collect the amount on behalf of a Superintendent Engineer, an Executive Engineer and two Junior Engineers, all allegedly part of the conspiracy, they said.
After catching Agrawal, Tuli and two MCD officials "red-handed", CBI teams carried out searches at 15 locations including the residential and official premises of the MCD officers, they said.
Officials of Micromax mobiles were not immediately available for comment.
CBI teams recovered cash worth Rs 40 lakh from the residence of an MCD Junior Engineer Kapil Dev.
The sources said searches are going on and the agency is on the trail of other MCD officials.
