RAIPUR: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested a Chhattisgarh IAS officer Babu Lal Agrawal on charges of offering bribe of Rs 1.5 crore as “gratification for help” in an old corruption case against him.
On Sunday the premier investigation agency registered a case of graft against the 1988-batch IAS officer, who allegedly “offered bribe to settle a corruption case”, which is under CBI investigation.
Agrawal’s brother-in-law Anand Agrawal and Bhagwan Singh whom the tainted bureaucrat first contacted for help in the case were also arrested.
CBI spokesperson R K Gaur confirmed the news to The New Indian Express and said that they were arrested and brought to Delhi by flight and will be produced before the Patiala House Court later on Tuesday.
Agrawal, a principal secretary (higher education) in Chhattisgarh government, allegedly tried to pay bribe through a hawala operator to other public servants (possibly from the CBI) to settle the case. This led the CBI to conduct simultaneous raids at his residence and other premises in Raipur, Hyderabad and Noida last Saturday and Sunday.
According to the CBI, an amount of Rs 45 lakh was allegedly handed over by the bureaucrat to a hawala dealer at Raipur on February 11 and was to be delivered at Delhi. It was also cited that the receivers agreed to accept part of the gratification payment in the form of 2 kg of gold to be delivered by his brother-in-law.
On Monday, Agrawal was grilled at the Bhilai-based CBI office for nearly three hours. His written and oral statements were recorded. The officer later submitted his stand and clarifications to the chief secretary at the state secretariat before he was arrested on Tuesday.
Following the CBI arrest the Chhattisgarh government is likely to initiate action against the senior bureaucrat who was earlier suspended for four months in 2010 after the income tax raids