A senior IAS officer and another bureaucrat--both in the Union Home Ministry-- have been booked on corruption charges in two separate cases by CBI, which also conducted searches at their homes apart from arresting a businessman and three excise officials.
A case under various Sections of IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against O Ravi, Joint Secretary (Disaster Management), Ministry of Home Affairs, two excise inspectors --Ramesh Mahyavanshi and Vijay Halpati-- and sub-inspector Suresh Dhodi for allegedly indulging in a excise duty evasion scam to the tune of Rs 340 crore, CBI said on Wednesday.
Even as the searches were continuing in connection with the case, CBI arrested owner of Royal distilleries Ashok Khemani and three excise officials. Khemani was arrested from a posh hotel in the national capital while the others were arrested from Daman.
Ravi, a 1983-batch Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, allegedly took a bribe of Rs 25 lakh to get Daman administrator transferred, CBI spokesperson said. Home Ministry has asked the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to suspend Ravi. The suspension orders are likely to be issued soon. The directors of six distilleries --Royal, Jupiter, Krimpy, Silver Star and Dharmesh and some unknown persons -- were also booked for alleged fraud.
"It has been alleged that in order to evade excise duty and VAT, the distilleries of Daman in connivance with the officials of the excise department resorted to under-reporting of production by preparing fake documents," the spokesman said. CBI conducted searches at 36 places of the accused persons at Daman, Mumbai and New Delhi.
In the second incident, the Central agency conducted searches at the residential and office premises of a Home Ministry official and a private party in connection with a graft case in the purchase of bullet-proof jackets for Central Police Forces after registering a case against him.
CBI booked the Director-level official for allegedly accepting bribe in the purchase of bullet-proof jackets for Central Police Forces.
The case was registered this month against R S Sharma, a Indian Railway and Engineering Officer of 1984 batch who allegedly developed "nexus" with some private firms involved in the supply of 59,000 bullet-proof jackets for paramilitary forces, a CBI statement said.
"An officer of MHA developed nexus with certain private firms supplying security equipment such as armoured panels, bullet-proof jackets, helmets shields etc for granting undue favours to such firms," Harsh Bahl, official spokesperson of the agency, said.
The official established an "unauthorised" contact with the private firm and have been demanding and accepting illegal gratification in lieu of services and favours shown, he said. "Searches are being conducted at residential and official premises of the accused officer and residential and factory premises of the owner of the private firm," he said. PTI
