Ranjit Mahanti
THE Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered two cases against Chairman, Managing Director (MD) of Syndicate Bank and 11 other (private persons) including CMD and Directors of two private firms based at Delhi in a bribery case.
The accused identified as CMD Syndicate bank Neeraj Singhal, vice chairman of Bhushan steels Ltd Delhi Ved Prakash Agarwal, CMD Prakash Industries Delhi Vipul Agarwal. Others are Pawan Bansal, Vineet Godha,, Punit Godha, Vijay Pahuja, Purushottam Lal Totlani and Pankaj Bansal.
According to CBI spokesperson, it is alleged that the said public servant has been indulging into negotiations for illegal gratification directly as well as through middlemen for extending undue favour to private companies by granting sanction to various financial proposals. The private persons on behalf of companies and others allegedly enter into criminal conspiracy and obtain illegal gratification meant for the public servant and further deliver it to the middlemen on behalf of the public servant.
It is further alleged, that in one case, the public servant was directly negotiating with a private company for an illegal gratification of Rs. 50 lakhs in lieu of granting credit extension to the said company as it had defaulted on the payment of loan installments amounting to crores of rupees to the bank. The officials of the said company allegedly agreed to pay the said illegal gratification and the money was transferred to the middlemen who are also relative of the public servant. CBI laid a trap and recovered the illegal gratification of Rs. 50 lakhs on the spot after the said delivery was made.
Searches were conducted at 20 places including office and residence of the public servant and other private persons at Delhi, Bhopal, Mumbai and Bengaluru. During searches incriminating documents, huge cash, jewelry and property documents have related to the case have been recovered.
Apart from Rs 21 lakh cash, gold ornaments worth of Rs 1.68 Crore and FDR of Rs 63 lakh were found from CMD S K Jain’s residence.
The accused have been booked under relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and criminal conspiracy.
Further investigation is continuing.