The arrested senior executives of the erstwhile National Rayon Corporation (NRC) had brought with them in a pen drive the favourable order which they wanted issued by the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR).
CBI sources said that the operation carried out by them was a result of a detailed technical surveillance during which the intended beneficiary member of BIFR had in a telephonic conversation indicated that in such matters, the exchange of money could well be in crores.
Sources said that, based on the surveillance, the agency arrested the CFO of the company MC Nalvaya, Managing Director Arun Jain, BIFR official Suchet Das and a middleman, Rajeev Jain, who had taken a part bribe of Rs 10 lakh on behalf of a BIFR member.
During the searches in which the Managing Director and Chief Financial officer of the erstwhile NRC were arrested, the agency seized a USB drive from the possession of a BIFR official, CBI sources said.
Analysis of the pen drive showed that it carried the order which NRC executives wanted BIFR to pass in exchange for illegal gratification, they added.
Sources said the probe has revealed that the executives got a preferred version of the order framed and gave it to the middleman and the BIFR official, saying that the BIFR order should be along those lines.
BIFR was set up under Finance Ministry, which determines sickness and expedites the revival of potentially-viable units or closure of unviable ones.
It was expected that by revival, idle investments in sick units would become productive while, through closure, locked- up investments in unviable units would get released for use elsewhere.
Emails sent to NRC for a reaction remained unanswered.
CBI had registered a case against the four arrested accused for offering a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to a BIFR member in exchange for issuing a favourable order for NRC.
"A case has been registered under Section 120-B of IPC and Section 7,8,9,12 and 13(2), read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act 1988 against one officer of BIFR, five private persons, including one Delhi-based middleman, and officials of a Mumbai-based private company and unknown others," CBI said.
It is alleged that the officials of the said company were paying illegal gratification for getting a favourable order from BIFR, CBI said, adding that the "private company of Mumbai was producing nylon and chemicals and declared allegedly sick by BIFR".
Das is a bench officer in BIFR. Role of a member of BIFR was also scrutinised in connection with the case.