2 IRS officers among 7 held by CBI for graft | India News – Times of India

MUMBAI: The CBI arrested two Indian Revenue Service officers – a joint commissioner and deputy commissioner at Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) – and five others in a case where touts were collecting money on behalf of the officers and other public servants. In all, more than Rs 1 crore in cash was seized during the operation.
A special CBI court rejected the plea for their police custody and released all of them on bail after accepting the defence contention about an illegal arrest.
During a surprise check by CBI on Tuesday, a collection agent, Manoj Joglekar, was found with Rs 60 lakh kept in envelopes bearing code names, purportedly of the officials receiving the bribes and the companies making the payments.
One of the arrested IRS officers, Chanderpal Singh Chauhan, was joint commissioner in SEEPZ and owned properties worth Rs 40 crore and several high-end cars and expensive watches, the remand application said. The other IRS officer was identified as deputy development commissioner, Prasad Varawantkar.
The remand application said Chauhan was getting an extension at the job by paying hefty bribes to higher-ups.
Lawyer Rahul Agarwal, who represented Chauhan, said CBI officers detained him on Dec 17 and produced him before the court on Dec 18, which implied that he was illegally detained beyond a period of 24 hours.
It was argued that CBI arrested the accused prior to the FIR registration and that the time of arrest was misrepresented and shown as 12.35am on Dec 18.
The CBI had received multiple complaints against Chauhan, regarding demands for bribes to process properties-business related NOCs at SEEPZ in Andheri.
The cash envelopes seized allegedly had code names for certain officers including Kanchi Gupta and Anil Chaudhary and upper division clerk Rajesh Kumar.
CBI also seized Rs 47 lakh from Rekha Nair, a SEEPZ employee, and arrested her. Besides the two IRS officers and the SEEPZ staffer, the others arrested are Manish Kumar, Ravindra Kumar, Sanjeev Kumar Meena and Rajesh Kumar.