SHILLONG, Dec 11: In an interesting turn of events, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which had initiated a probe into the matter pertaining to a NEHU associate professor and head of the department of bio-medical engineering, Dinesh Bhatia, who allegedly had taken a bribe of Rs 40,000 in cash, has now made the complainant, Raghuvendra Pratap Tripathi, an accused in the very case.
Bhatia was arrested by the CBI for in a graft case in 2018 under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 40,000 in cash from Tripathi, who was pursuing his PhD under the associate professor’s supervision.
The legal counsel for Dinesh Bhatia, M Haque, on Friday, said that the CBI has made the complainant Raghuvendra Pratap Tripathi an accused, whose written complaint had led to the registration of a corruption case against Bhatia.
The CBI in its chargesheet said that the complainant has also committed the crime along with Dr Dinesh Bhatia and one Ranjeet Kumar Gupta. Besides, the accused, Tripathi, also requested Gupta to help him and Bhatia to commit the crime, it added.
The CBI investigation revealed that the money trail clearly implicates all three – Bhatia, Tripathi and Gupta – and the aforesaid acts of commission and omission on the part of Tripathi amounts to offence in the case.
Haque said that the case was fixed for appearance of all three accused on Friday after filing of the chargesheet, however, only Bhatia appeared along with the counsel while the other two were absent, to which the Special CBI Court has taken a serious note.
