Bribery case: TN cops ask ED officer to appear at police station on Dec 26

Chennai: In an unusual move, the Tamil Nadu Police have registered a case against officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly preventing sleuths from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) from discharging their duties in the bribery case involving an officer from the Central agency.

The Madurai City Police have also issued summons to Brijesh Beniwal, Assistant Director, ED, Madurai sub-zonal office, to appear before the Tallakulam police station on Tuesday, a development that is expected to escalate the tensions between the state and Union governments.

Ankit Tiwari, an Enforcement Officer with ED’s Madurai office, was arrested on December 1 by DVAC officials from near a toll gate in Dindigul district after he received Rs 20 lakh as bribe from a doctor employed with the state government for not reopening the disproportionate assets (DA) case against him which was disposed of.

Tiwari, who is currently in judicial custody, has been denied bail by the trial court and the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. Immediately after the arrest, sleuths from DVAC searched the ED office in Madurai for about 13 hours following which the Central agency. A day later, Beniwal had filed a complaint with the Director General of Police (DGP) seeking action against DVAC officials who barged into the ED office and “ransacked” it.

The DVAC, on its part, filed a separate complaint against ED officers accusing them of preventing them from discharging their duties based on which a case has been registered and Beniwal has been summoned. “We have asked Mr Beniwal to be present at the Tallakulam police station on December 26,” a senior police officer said, without sharing details of the case filed against ED officers.

The case against Tiwari is that he contacted a Government employee, a doctor, and mentioned a case which was registered against him by DVAC and subsequently disposed of. The ED officer sought Rs 3 crore as bribe for him to escape legal action but agreed to accept Rs 51 lakh.

While the doctor paid the first instalment of Rs 20 lakh on November 1, Tiwari sought the remaining amount and asked him to pay the full amount of Rs. 51 lakh. Suspicious over Tiwari’s activities, the doctor lodged a complaint with the Dindigul Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Unit, following which he was trapped and arrested.

In his complaint to the DGP, Beniwal had accused the DVAC team of accessing sensitive case records, information and internal documents of ED related to other cases which have no link with the alleged search case, and “ransacked the entire office.”

The DVAC “raid” inside the ED office was unprecedented and opened yet another front between the DMK dispensation and the BJP-led Union Government – three state ministers are already under the scanner of the ED, whose summons to five district collectors in a sand mining case was stayed by the Madras High Court on November 28.