The CBI on Saturday arrested a General Manager of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in Bhopal for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from a Delhi businessman in lieu of clearing his bills. According to the agency, the Director of a Delhi-based firm had complained to it that FCI GM Ashish Agarwal had demanded a bribe of Rs 10 lakh for passing bills of his firm against loading expenses amounting to about Rs 85 lakh.
The agency laid a trap and Agarwal was caught red-handed while allegedly accepting the bribe amount of Rs 5 lakh from the Director of the private firm, a CBI spokesperson said. Searches at the official and residential premises of Agarwal are being conducted, the spokesperson added. In a separate case, the CBI arrested two Income-Tax officials from Thrissur in a corruption case. The arrested officials include Assistant Commissioners P Jose and Vincent Joseph who had allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh for settling a tax case.
“The complainant in this case had alleged that he was regularly paying income tax as per his business transactions. The Income Tax authorities had issued a notice to his firm during 2012 stating therein that they wanted to scrutinise the accounts of his firm for the financial year 2010-11. Accordingly, the book of accounts were produced through his auditor of a Thrissur-based private firm of Chartered Accountants,” a CBI spokesperson said here.
The CBI said the auditor later informed the complainant that his firm’s account records were scrutinised by Jose and he allegedly sent a message through the auditor that he has to pay a Rs 50 lakh penalty for the contravention of the I-T Act and Rules and he allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh as bribe to settle the matter.
The complainant, along with his auditor, visited the office of Jose and the officer allegedly reiterated his demand of Rs 10 lakh for reducing the I-T penalty from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 lakh. The agency, on being approached by the complainant, later laid a trap and Jose, along with his colleague Joseph, were caught red handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh from the complainant, the official added.