Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The anti-corruption wing of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Bhopal unit on Saturday recovered Rs 3.1 crore in cash and 387 grams gold jewellery from the house of a Food Corporation of India (FCI) clerk, who was arrested along with three managers of the department for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe from a security agency on Friday.
The investigating agency has also recovered a cash counter machine and a diary containing details related to bribes paid by different persons from a secret locker at the house of the accused.
After conducting raids at residential premises of three accused managers, CBI officials learnt that the accused managers had concealed their illegal earnings at the house of clerk Kishore Meena.
Meena lives in Kainchi Chhola locality of Bhopal. On Saturday morning, a team raided the house of Meena. The search was on till filing this report.
A senior CBI officer said that the locker was found hidden in an Almirah at Meena's house. “A huge locker was found inside an Almirah. A total of Rs 3.1 crore in cash, 387 gram gold jewellery and around 800 gram silver jewellery have been found in the locker," the officer said wishing not be named.
He further said that a diary having details regarding the bribes accepted by the accused and few other documents have also been recovered from the locker, so far.
Notably, the investigating agency had arrested four people including a divisional manager of FCI for allegedly demanding and accepting bribes from a Gurugram based security agency.
The security agency named Capt Kapor and sons had lodged a complaint that the officers at the FCI were demanding bribes and creating obstacles in clearing the bills of the company.
Kapoor and Sons has started providing security guards to FCI from January this year. The contract is worth Rs 11.30 lakh per month. Sources said FCI account manager was pressurizing the company to shell out 10% (Rs 1.30 lakh) of the bill per month. As the security company didn’t agree to it, the FCI accounts manager started making deductions from the bills on various pretexts. CBI officials say that the latest bill was reduced to almost half i.e. Rs 6 lakh only.
The company then approached the CBI that laid a trap to catch the ‘corrupt’ officers red-handed. The officials of the security agency, after some negotiations, agreed to pay Rs 50,000 to clear the bill. FCI’s accounts manager Arun Shrivastava asked the company manager to come with the amount at Mata Mandir locality in Bhopal.
The accused manager also brought the manager of FCI’s security wing Mohan Parase along to collect the bribe money, said CBI sources. As soon as they collected the money, the CBI officers arrested them.
During interrogation the two accused claimed that they were collecting the money at the behest of FCI’s divisional manager Harsh Unnayana. To confirm their claims, the CBI officers asked the duo to call up the divisional manager. While conversing, they were made to put their mobile phone on speaker mode.
“Divisional manager picked up the phone and asked the accounts manager to hand over the money to clerk Kailash Meena. The money was confiscated and all four of them have been booked,” said the CBI officer, adding that searches are being conducted on the residential and office premises of the FCI officers.
