CBI arrests senior railway official, two others in Rs 1-cr bribery case
New Delhi: The CBI arrested the chief administrative officer (construction) of the Northeast Frontier Railways on Sunday for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs one crore for granting favours in awarding lucrative contracts to a private company, officials said.
Mahender Singh Chauhan, 1985-batch Indian Railways Service of Engineer (IRSE) officer, was nabbed from Maligaon in Assam's Guwahati, while two others — Bhupendra Rawat, an employee of accused company ABCI Infrastructures Private Limited, and Indra Singh — were apprehended from Uttarakhand's Dehradun, where the bribe amount was allegedly being delivered on Chauhan's instructions, they said.
Besides the arrested accused and the company, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also booked railway officials Hem Chand Borah (deputy chief engineer), Laxmi Kant Verma (assistant executive engineer) and director of ABCI Infrastructures Private Limited Pawan Baid. It is alleged that Chauhan (58) had demanded the bribe to show favours to the accused company in awarding contracts for various projects in the Northeast Frontier Railways, the officials said.
"The contractors were allegedly being facilitated in awarding the contracts, processing of subsequent bills, release of payments etc. by the public functionaries in lieu of illegal gratifications," CBI Spokesperson Joshi said in a statement.
The agency has alleged that Baid, the director of the private company, was in contact with Chauhan in connection with various ongoing projects in the Northeast Frontier region.
"It was also alleged that on his demand, the said Director, through his employee, got delivered bribe of Rs one crore to the relative (private person) of said CAO at his residence in Dehradun," the statement said.
CBI teams launched a widespread search operation at 21 locations in five states — Delhi, Uttarakhand, Tripura, West Bengal and Assam — it added.
The agency has recovered the bribe amount and other incriminating documents related to project contracts in the Northeast Frontier Railways, the statement said.
