NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered two FIRs against the Enforcement Directorate officers including an Assistant Director and a few senior officers posted in Shimla for demanding and accepting bribes, sources said.
The first case involved an alleged bribe amount worth Rs 85 lakh and the second one Rs 80 lakh, sources added.
They said that the alleged bribery scandal involved ED’s assistant director posted in Himachal Pradesh’s capital city and the officer had escaped during a trap operation conducted by the the CBI last week.
A source in the CBI said, “The agency has now registered two FIRs with one pertaining to alleged bribe demand of Rs 85 lakh and another of Rs 80 lakh from the promoters of educational institutes in Himachal Pradesh.”
The promoters, who were also the complainant in the case, had addressed a press conference in Shimla and accused the assistant director of allegedly calling them to office, torturing them and demanding bribes.
The sources said the CBI has three suspects under scanner in the case with the brother of the accused and a middleman already arrested, while the officer is understood to be on the run and has not joined the investigation so far.
The assistant director of the ED posted at Shimla and his brother, a senior manager at the Punjab National Bank in Delhi, had allegedly gone to a location near Chandigarh to receive the bribe money from an educational institute promoter, who is facing a probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said, adding that the probe into the matter pertains to post-matriculation scholarship scam in Himachal Pradesh.
The owner of the educational institute had filed a complaint with the CBI about alleged extortion, based on which the Chandigarh unit of the agency planned the trap operation, where the complainant was asked to give a bribe of Rs 55 lakh in cash to the officer, with CBI sleuths keeping an eye, the sources said, adding that the plan was to nab the accused after the bribe money was transacted.
The ED officer, who is on deputation from the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), got alerted during the operation and allegedly fled, the sources said, adding that the attempts are on to track him.
Meanwhile, sources in the ED said, the accused assistant director of its Shimla sub-zonal office and his supervisory officers - a deputy director and the joint director (based in Chandigarh) - have been transferred to Delhi after the case surfaced.