GUWAHATI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has so far recovered Rs 4.43 crore during the course of the investigation into the alleged bribery case involving senior officials of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).
The apex investigation agency has already arrested a chief administrative officer (Construction-II) of NFR posted at Maligaon here and four others accused in the case.
“On Tuesday, CBI sleuths conducted further searches on the premises of a private firm (allegedly involved in the said case) located at Kailash Colony, New Delhi and recovered around Rs 2.04 crore along with other items which were seized for further investigation,” an official statement said.
Till Monday, the agency had recovered Rs 2.39crore during searches in as many as 26 locations, including in Delhi, Uttarakhand, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal.
Searches are also being conducted in Sikkim and Kanpur.
Apart from the chief administrative officer, the other arrested accused in the case include a deputy chief engineer and an assistant executive engineer of NFR, Agartala; an employee of a private company based in Guwahati and a private person (relative of CAO, NFR).
The accused persons were produced before competent courts on Monday.
It may be noted that CBI had registered cases against the arrested accused under relevant sections of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
“It was alleged that the accused were abusing their official positions for obtaining illegal gratification. Further, it was alleged that a director of a private company was in contact with said CAO in various on-going projects in the NFR region. It was also alleged that on his demand, the director through his employee delivered a bribe of Rs one crore to the relative (private person) of CAO at his residence in Dehradun,” the statement said.
The CBI had on Sunday busted a major corruption racket on the basis of allegations that some senior public functionaries of NFR were involved in corrupt practices with private contractors for ongoing projects in NFR.
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 gratification.
