New Delhi, Sept 30: The Delhi policeman, who exposed match-fixing scam in cricket, senior officials of Income Tax, Central Excise, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited were among the 70 officials booked by the CBI in nationwide anti-corruption drive.
Searches were conducted at 198 places in 54 cities. Out of these cases, four were registered against officials above the rank of joint secretary, CBI Director U S Misra told reporters here.
CBI registered a disproportionate assets case against Income Tax Commissioner B R Meena, an IRS officer of 1977 batch, and claimed to have recovered so far cash of Rs 16 lakh from his premises.
The CBI director said the agency had calculated that the worth of his property had already crossed Rs one crore.
A case was registered against four officials of BSNL and some executives of Modi Xerox for allegedly entering into a criminal conspiracy whereby tender of printing of telephone bills was fruadulently awarded to the company by officers of BSNL.
One of the persons named in the CBI FIR was Deputy Director General of BSNL R H Padkone, a post equivalent to Additional Secretary at the Centre.
CBI also booked Ishwar Singh, the Delhi police inspector who had shot into fame after exposing the match fixing case. He was booked by CBI for possessing assets worth Rs 40 lakh which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The agency claimed to have recovered Rs 1.07 lakh cash from his premises.
Such anti-corruption drives have been carried out three
times earlier this year, he said, adding major country-wide
raids took place in February, April and June.
Kolkata
CBI recovered a whopping
Rs 26 lakh cash from the premises of a Superintendent of
Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Kolkata.
The CBI had registered a case of disproportionate assets
against Gorachand Chatterjee and raided his premises early
this morning as part of the agency`s nationwide
anti-corruption drive.
Highly placed CBI sources said that so far the agency had
recovered Rs 26 lakh in cash and more was expected as he had
properties located in other parts of the state.
Chatterjee is a Central Excise official and is at present
on deputation with Narcotics Control Bureau.
However, no arrest has been made, sources said.
Mumbai
In Mumbai, CBI sleuths recovered Rs eight lakh from
Commissioner of Income Tax Tribunal B R Meena, an IAT
Delhi Teams began searching the city residences of two Central Excise and customs officers.
The residences of Superintendent of Central Excise and Assistant Commissioner of Customs were being searched from early this morning, the official said.
Asked if any seizure has been made, the official said it was too early to say anything, but basically the raids pertained to cases of disproportionate wealth.
Karnataka:
CBI sleuths today seized documents of a property estimated at Rs 50 lakh to Rs 60 lakh, believed to be disproportionate to known sources of income of a divisional engineer of BSNL at present posted at Cuddapah in Andhra Pradesh, agency sources said.
The employee of the state-run firm was posted here between the year 2000 and 2004 before his transfer to the district headquarters town of Andhra Pradesh, the sources said.
The property is located at Cuddapah and the documents were seized during the CBI`s investigation here as part of the agency`s nation-wide drive against corruption in government offices.
Jharkhand
Raids were also conducted at
some places in Deogarh, Godda and Dumka in Jharkhand.
According to initial reports, the sleuths raided the
residence of a BSNL engineer, Inder Dev Yadav, at Nunajore
village in Godda district.
Bihar
The premises of the Bihar State Convenor of the Council for Advancement of
People`s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), some NGOs and
an official of the cantonment board were also searched as part of a nationwide
anti-corruption drive.
The SP, CBI (Patna), R Shivaji, told reporters that the premier
investigative agency had registered four cases in connection
with the "swindling" of public money by various
non-government organisations through CAPART.
The NGOs with the "connivance" of some CAPART officials,
including its convenor, had availed of huge government
subsidies by submitting "false and forged documents", he said.
The SP said that a search was also going on at the
premises of an engineer of the state cantonment board on the
charge of possessing assets disproportionate to his known
source of income.
Asked if any seizures had been made, he said, ``It is too
early to say anything as the search operations are still
underway.``
Kerala
Documents and some articles were seized by CBI officials who conducted raids at the residence of a Railway official at two places each at Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam, agency sources said.
CBI registered a case in Kochi against the senior official who was earlier based at Thiruvananthapuram, top CBI sources said here, declining to say anything further since the raids were continuing.
Chennai
The CBI
recovered documents relating to property, securities and cash
worth over Rs 90 lakh from the residence of a Chennai-based
Central Excise Superintendent, during the country-wide
anti-corruption raids today, agency sources said.
The recovery at the residence of the Central Excise
Superintendent also included moveable assets like securities
and cash ranging between Rs 55-60 lakh.
There were few more properties belonging to him and the
documents were kept in a bank locker. Being a bank holiday,
the locker was not opened today, the sources told reporters.
The sources said raids were also conducted at the
residence of an assistant customs commissioner here but there
was "no major seizure."
Raids were also conducted at the residence of BSNL
divisional engineer.
Bureau Report
