4 excise intel officers sent to police remand in Rs 10 lakh bribe case

DEHRADUN: Close on the heels of the arrest of Anil Kumar Mishra, an assistant director in the Directorate General of Customs and Central Excise Intelligence, by the CBI unit of Dehradun from his office on Friday for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh, three of his subordinates were also arrested. The four had together allegedly put pressure on A K Yadav, an industrial unit owner at Rudrapur, to pay a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to “settle some issues related to service tax”.
Apart from Mishra, the trio arrested have been identified as A K Gupta, Ved Pandey, both intelligence officers, and Satendra Kumar, senior intelligence officer. According to CBI sources, during the probe it came to the fore that the three were also allegedly putting pressure on the complainant “to pay the bribe at the earliest”.
After the arrests late on Friday night, the four were on Saturday produced before the CBI court, which sent them to five days of police remand. On the request of defence lawyer, the court directed that the required medical attention be provided to Mishra, who is the main accused and is suffering from diabetes.
Meanwhile, the CBI team also raided the residences of the four accused and seized some “incriminating” material but refused to disclose the details at “this stage of the case”. The CBI sleuths also checked the bank lockers and bank details of the four arrested excise intelligence officers.
At present, the Directorate General of Customs and Central Excise Intelligence office at Shastri Nagar on Haridwar road has six employees and is headed by Anil Kumar Mishra.
Deputy SP, CBI, Akhil Kaushik, who is heading the probe, told TOI, “We are still probing the matter and more facts are likely to come out soon.” Kaushik said Anil Kumar Yadav, who is the complainant in the matter, had approached the investigating agency on Thursday morning .
He had told the CBI sleuths that the officials of the Directorate General of Customs and Central Excise (Intelligence) had conducted raid on his premises on March 30, 2015 for assessment of service tax and had seized office records. “The excise intelligence team seized some documents and put pressure on Yadav to pay a bribe to get the issue settled,” said the CBI officer. After rounds of negotiation, a deal was struck for Rs 10 lakh, which was to be handed over to Mishra at his office on Friday evening.
Following the complaint, the CBI team verified the allegations which were found “genuine”. Thereafter a trap was laid to arrest Mishra. During investigation, CBI team found that others were also involved in “pressurizing” the complainant.
The five-member CBI team led by Kaushik which is probing the case comprised sub inspectors Anil Chandola, Tej Prakash, SS Muyal and R P Sharma.