CBI arrests top NFR officials in bribery investigation; Rs. 2.39 cr recovered

GUWAHATI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Mahendra Singh Chauhan, Chief Administrative Officer of the North Eastern Frontier Railway (NFR), from NF Railway (Construction) headquarters in Guwahati.

A Deputy Chief Engineer and an Assistant Executive Engineer from Agartala, an employee of a private company based at Guwahati and a relative of the CAO were also arrested in the ongoing investigation of the case related to alleged bribery of Rs. 1 crore.

All the arrested accused  are being produced today before the Courts.

During searches, another sum of Rs.18.5 lakh and Rs.6.5 lakh have been recovered from the premises of Deputy Chief Engineer and Assistant Executive Engineer respectively.  Thus, a total amount of Rs. 2.39 crore has been recovered. This includes an alleged bribe of Rs. 1 crore, which exchanged hands yesterday. It is stated to be one of the biggest bribe amounts. In addition, Rs.60 lakh was recovered from Dehradun and Rs. 54 lakh from Guwahati premises of CAO, yesterday. Besides this, there has been the recovery of jewelry and documents from locations," it was stated in an official release.

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Searches were conducted at 26 locations including at Delhi, Uttrakhand,  Assam, Tripura and West Bengal.

The CBI has registered a case against the Chief Administrative Officer and others in relation to the bribery case.

It was alleged that the accused were abusing their official position for obtaining illegal gratification.

It was further alleged that the Director of a private company was in contact with said CAO in various on-going projects in NFR region.

The Director through his employee got delivered a bribe of Rs. 1 crore to the relative of the CAO at his residence in Dehradun.

The accused allegedly exchanging bribe money were caught yesterday. The alleged bribe of Rs. 1 crore was recovered.

The investigation was launched after it was alleged that some senior public functionaries of North Eastern Frontier Railways were involved in corrupt practices with private contractors for the on-going projects in the North Eastern Frontier Railways.

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