New Delhi. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday arrested a senior section engineer of Railways’ Office of the Chief Signal and Telecommunication Engineer (CSTE) project posted in Vijayawada and a private person in a bribery case.
The agency has registered a case against a senior section engineer, four representatives of private companies and unidentified public servants and private individuals on charges of demanding and accepting bribe.
According to the CBI, South Central Railways had allotted the automatic block signaling work worth Rs 179.50 crore to a joint venture of two private companies.
The agency had received information that the joint venture had claimed a bonus of about Rs 7 crore for completing the work before the scheduled time.
It is alleged that officials of the Vijayawada-based CSTE project manipulated the dates related to the bonus file to provide undue benefit to the joint venture and help in the approval of the bonus claim.
According to the investigating agency, the managing director of the private company had told the accused senior section engineer that on August 16, his son would deliver the bribe amount while going from Visakhapatnam to Vijayawada.
Based on the information, CBI laid a trap and caught the Senior Section Engineer red handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from a private person. The entire bribe amount was recovered.
CBI said that this bribe was being given in exchange for getting the bonus amount approved and released in favor of the company. According to the agency, search operations are being conducted at the premises of the accused located in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Pithapuram and Hyderabad.
The arrested senior section engineer and the private person will be produced before the competent court in Vijayawada on August 17. Further investigation is ongoing in the matter.