The CBI on Tuesday questioned Anup Majhi, the alleged mastermind of illegal coal mining in Eastern Coalfields Ltd mines in Asansol (West Bengal), in connection with the coal pilferage scam. He was grilled at the agency’s office in Kolkata. Earlier, the Supreme Court had restrained the agency from arresting Majhi till April 6."The petitioner shall not be arrested until April 6. This order has been passed without going into the merit of the case. We clarify that this order will not restrain the investigation," a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud had said.
The bench, also comprising Justices M R Shah and Sanjiv Khanna, directed that Majhi shall cooperate in the probe in the case. The multi-crore coal pilferage scam is related to the Eastern Coalfields Ltd mines in the Kunustoria and Kajora areas in West Bengal.The CBI had registered an FIR in November last year against the alleged kingpin of the pilferage racket, Manjhi alias Lala, ECL general managers Amit Kumar Dhar and Jayesh Chandra Rai, ECL security chief Tanmay Das, Kunustoria area security inspector Dhananjay Rai and Kajor area security in-charge Debashish Mukherjee. PNS
Meanwhile, the agency on Tuesday arrested an Executive Engineer (Electrical) of CPWD, Hyderabad and a Superintendent of Central Excise & Central Tax (GST) Honnavar Range, Uttara Kannada in two separate cases of bribery.
The first case was registered against Executive Engineer (Electrical), CPWD, Hyderabad, Sai Komareshwar on the allegations that he had demanded Rs 60,000 (three percent of final bill amount of around Rs 20 lakh) from the complainant for clearing complainant’s pending bills for the contracts he executed for CPWD.
It was fur ther alleged that the complainant had already paid Rs 45,000 to the accused. But the accused allegedly demanded the remaining bribe amount of Rs 15,000.
The CBI laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 as second installment from the complainant. Searches were conducted at the office and residential premises of the accused, which led to cash recovery of Rs 1.34 lakh and around 27 documents at his office and cash of Rs 30.50 lakh besides documents related to purchase of gold jewellery and other incriminating documents from the residence, the agency said.
The second case was registered against a Superintendent of Central Excise & Central Tax (GST), Honnavar Range, Uttara Kannada (Karwar), Karnataka, Jitendra K Dagur on a complaint alleging that the accused demanded a bribe of Rs 50,000 from the complainant to waive off the service tax and penalty due from him on tax returns.
The CBI laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 25,000 as the first installment. Searches were conducted at the office and residence of the accused at Honnavar.
