₹25 lakh bribery case: Contractor’s penalty was lowered in lieu of bribe

MUMBAI: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s probe against a senior railway officer, and others, in a ₹25 lakh bribery case allegedly revealed that the accused officer had contacted another railway officer in September to impress upon him the need to clear a pending bill of ₹3.17 crore of a railway contractor on a priority basis, as a favour.

The probe also revealed that due to the accused officer’s alleged intervention, a hefty penalty imposed against the accused contractor for delay in the execution of a contracted work had been lowered, from what was initially assessed by railway authorities, and the the pending bill was cleared for payment in late October, according to the CBI. The railway officer had allegedly been contacted by certain accused private persons in the case for facilitating the lowering of the railway penalty and the clearance of the pending bill in lieu of an illegal gratification, according to CBI sources.

Acting on specific intelligence, the CBI had on Saturday arrested in Mumbai the senior railway officer, Saurabh Prasad, Divisional Railway Manager, East Coast Railways, Waltair Division, Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), and a businessman, S Rathod, during a trap proceeding in which the alleged exchange of ₹25 lakh of undue advantage took place, the CBI said on Sunday. The agency also arrested a third accused, A Bhagat, a Pune-based businessman, for his alleged involvement in the case. The two arrested businessmen were allegedly executing a railway project related to heavy repairs, renovation and refurbishment of wagons on behalf of a Gujarat-based accused railway contractor, according to the CBI.

It is alleged that one of the accused private persons had met the railway officer at his office in Vizag on September 9, with a request to get the penalty lowered and the pending bill cleared in lieu of an assurance that an illegal gratification would be paid for the favours. Thereafter, the accused railway officer had allegedly contacted a senior divisional mechanical engineer and impressed upon him that the pending bill has to be cleared on priority. The CBI probe also learnt that pursuant to the railway officer’s alleged intervention, the pending bill was cleared for payment in late October and the final penalty levied was much lower than what was initially assessed by the railway authorities.

During searches carried out by the CBI in the case so far, the agency has recovered allegedly Indian and foreign currencies worth Rs. 87.60 lakhs from the premises of the accused railway officer, apart from jewellery worth ₹72 lakh, several incriminating documents including investments made in a flat at Kalyan, Thane. The CBI registered a case on Saturday against the accused persons and firms for allegations including those related to criminal conspiracy, obtaining a bribe by a public servant and bribing a public servant by private persons under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Prevention of Corruption Act.