A large portion of the cash was stashed in a vault inside a wooden almirah (File)
Bhopal:
Over Rs 3 crore in cash and jewellery were seized from a government clerk’s residence today by the CBI in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal after raids. A currency counting machine was also recovered by officials.
Four Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials had been arrested in a bribery case earlier following which raids were conducted. Around 8kg of gold and Rs 2.17 crore was seized from FCI clerk Kishore Meena’s house.
A large portion of the cash was stashed in a vault inside a wooden almirah.
A complaint was lodged with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by a Gurugram-based security company alleging that the FCI officers were making undue deductions in their bills for want of bribes.
The company – Capt Kapoor and Sons had been given the tender to provide security guards of the FCI from January this year at Rs 11.30 lakh per month.
The money and jewellery was found stashed inside a huge vault
CBI officials say that the FCI’s accounts manager was pressurising the company for 10 per cent against every approved bill which was around Rs 1.30 lakh per month.
The CBI then carried out a raid at the location where the bribe was decided to be exchanged and arrested the officials.
A diary containing meticulous details of people paying the bribe which will be under investigation was also recovered, officials said.
The arrested officials — Divisional Manager Harish Hinonia, Managers Arun Shrivastava and Mohan Parate, Manager and Assistant Kishore Meena — were produced before a special court in Bhopal which sent them to CBI custody till June 2.
“The cash amount was allegedly kept in different envelopes, some of the bundles were marked with names of the parties, dates and amounts…. A diary was found containing the detailed record of the cash amounts obtained such as date, name of party, amount and a note counting machine,” CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said, news agency PTI reported.
(With inputs from PTI)