The CBI on Wednesday carried out searches at the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED’s) Ahmedabad Zonal office after registering a case of bribery against its Joint Director Jitendra Pratap Singh, who is investigating the IPl betting.
CBI sources said the agency booked Singh, a 2000-batch Indian Revenue Service officer, for alleged corruption on a complaint of the Finance Ministry. The agency has booked Singh, unknown public servants and others under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and various other provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and conducted searches at five places.
After registering the cases, the CBI carried out searches at the ED’s office in Ahmedabad and residences of Singh and Additional Directors Sanjay Kumar and PS Srinivas, the sources said.
According to the CBI case, Rs 15 crore was allegedly handed over as bribe to Singh’s father-in-law, SKS Somvanshi, a retired IRS officer of 1978 batch, by hawala dealers and tax consultants for extending favours to suspects in two cases probed by the ED.
The ED’s Ahmedabad Zonal Office was probing two important cases -- Rs 2,000 crore IPl betting scandal and Rs 5,000 crore money laundering case against alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta in which the suspects allegedly sought favours, sources said.
A team of the agency official has also rushed to Srinivas’ residence at Surat to conduct further searches.
Sources said the ED Director Karnal Singh received multiple complaints from various quarters about the alleged demand for bribe by the senior officials of its Ahmedabad unit following which a consolidated complaint was forwarded to the CBI by the Finance Ministry.
Before registering the case, the CBI had put these suspects under technical and human surveillance during which prima facie material relating to alleged bribery scam was collected.
“It has been alleged that certain officers of Enforcement Directorate while investigating the cases of money laundering in betting and other such activities have allegedly demanded and accepted huge illegal gratification from the accused and suspect persons in the said cases. Huge bribe amount was allegedly taken by these officers as quid pro quo for various acts of omission and commission,” the CBI said in a statement.