CBI probing bribes offered to CEO Rakesh Kumar even for Shah Rukh, Vidya Balan and Rohit Shetty’s films
The CBI is probing allegations that arrested Chief Executive Officer of Censor Board Rakesh Kumar allegedly milked a host of top film producers and stars before giving clearance to some recently released films.
Top CBI sources said during the examination of Kumar and two others, including an agent and an advisory panel member of the Central Board of Film Certification, it surfaced that some top names in Bollywood including Shah Rukh Khan, Sajid Nadiadwala, Rohit Shetty, Vidya Balan and production house UTV had apparently paid money to get their movies cleared in time with desired certification.
Though the probe into graft allegations against Kumar and two other accused persons in the case is confined to the bribery case involving clearance to a Chhattisgarh regional movie, the agency is also independently verifying whether the claims of payment of bribe by Bollywood producers are correct and carry any evidentiary value, the sources said. The agency has not received any complaint from any Bollywood producer or director against Kumar.
“The common threat was to chop off item songs. Clearance was delayed till the last moment which made producers frantic and cough out illegal gratification to get the certificate before the scheduled release,” the sources said.
During sustained questioning of the trio, the sleuths have gathered that producers of recently released movies like Kick, Singham Returns and Bobby Jasoos, starring top actors, allegedly paid money to get their films cleared , the sources said.
The agency had arrested Kumar from Mumbai on Monday night for allegedly demanding Rs 70,000 as bribe for clearing a regional movie from Chhattisgarh. He was produced before the Special CBI court in Mumbai which remanded him to three-day CBI custody for further questioning.
The agency had searched his house on Thursday and arrested agent Shripati Mishra and advisory panel member of the Censor Board Sarvesh Jaiswal. They were caught while taking the alleged bribe on Kumar’s behalf.
They said an authorised agent for censor certification (complainant in the case) had approached the CBI alleging that Mishra had been demanding Rs 70,000 on behalf of Kumar for issuing the censor certificate for the regional language film Mor Dauki Ke Bihav.
An Indian Railways Personnel Officer, Kumar joined as CEO of CBFC in January. Kumar’s wife is an Income-Tax officer. The agency is also looking into allegations of disproportionate assets against Kumar even as the sleuths are examining the documents seized during the searches and evaluating the value of his assets.
Producers of the regional film had sought an urgent certificate as the date of the release of the movie was scheduled on August 15 but the agency laid a trap a day before and nabbed the two of them.