Chargesheet against 6 MCD, 2 DDA officials in graft case

CBI on Friday filed a chargesheet in a Delhi court against a private firm executive and nine others, including engineers of North Delhi Municipal Corporation and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), in a corruption case relating to construction of an unauthorised building here.

In its chargesheet, the CBI has named private firm executive Rajesh Agarwal as accused, along with his alleged associate Manish Tuli, North Delhi Municipal Corporation engineers Mahender Kumar Gupta, Rajesh Wadhwa, Satish Kumar, Naresh Kumar, Sanjay Kumar, R K Sethi, DDA engineer Rajesh Gupta and Kapil Deo.

They have been chargesheeted for offences under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

Special CBI Judge Poonam Bamba has set Saturday as the date for consideration on the chargesheet.

Out of the 10 chargesheeted accused, nine are presently lodged in judicial custody while Deo is absconding. The CBI, in its chargesheet, alleged that Agarwal who was the then Director of M/s Micromax Informatics, and Tuli were carrying out “unauthorised construction of a banquet hall” in Wazirpur industrial area here and the other accused had demanded Rs one crore as illegal gratification for allowing them to carry out the construction. It said that the bribe amount was finally settled at Rs 50 lakh.

“In furtherance of this conspiracy, it was also agreed upon by the parties to deliver Rs 30 lakh as part payment of the bribe amount on August 7, 2013, and remaining bribe amount during the next week,” it said.

The CBI also referred to the telephonic call records of various accused persons, and claimed that they were in constant touch with each other during the entire conspiracy. It had earlier said that an FIR was registered on a source information that Agarwal and Tuli had entered into the deal in exchange of bribe of Rs 50 lakh.

The CBI had told the court that during the probe, Rs 1.1 crore had been recovered from the possession of the accused.

In its chargesheet, the agency said Wadhwa and Kapil Deo did not speak with either Agarwal or Tuli directly for payment of bribe amount for regularisation of the building.

“It is clear from the telephonic conversations that they had full knowledge about the deal being made by M K Gupta and Satish Kumar with the private players. Each one of them was a party to this conspiracy and had participated in pressurising Manish Tuli and Rajesh Agarwal for payment of illegal gratification for regularisation of their building,” it said.