CBI books senior Chhattisgarh IAS officer for corruption

The CBI has registered an FIR against a senior IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh Government, two private persons and others on the charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy.
"CBI has registered a case against a Principal Secretary (IAS-1988), Chhattisgarh Government; a private person who is a resident of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh; another private person, a resident of Hyderabad, and other unknown persons.
"The allegations (are) related to the payment of around Rs.1.5 crore by the public servant to the private persons as the gratification for help in a case against him, which is under investigation by CBI," the central agency stated in a release today.

The case was registered against the Principal Secretary (Higher Education) BL Agrawal, Greater Noida resident Bhagwan Singh, Hyderabad resident Syed Burhanuddin alias OP Sharma alias Singh and other unknown persons under the section 120-B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of IPC read with section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
"It was further alleged that an amount of Rs 45 lakh (approximately) was handed over by the IAS officer to a hawala dealer at Raipur since 11.02. 2017 onwards which was to be delivered at Delhi to the private person, a Greater Noida resident. Out of the amount, around Rs 20 lakh has been delivered to the said private person at Delhi," the release said.

It was also alleged the "receivers" agreed to accept "part gratification payment" in the form of two-kg gold to be delivered by the brother-in-law of the officer to the contact of another private person, who is a Hyderabad resident, at Raipur.

During investigation, 2 kg of gold was recovered while searches were conducted at the premises of the accused persons and the hawala operators at Raipur, Hyderabad and New Delhi/Greater Noida yesterday and today, the agency said.
An amount of Rs 20 lakh delivered earlier to the Greater Noida resident at New Delhi has also been recovered during searches, the statement said, adding further investigation is on.

Earlier in 2010, two cases were registered by the
agency against Agrawal, the then Health Secretary, state government.
Out of the two cases, a chargesheet was filed in the Bhilai case probed by the ACB/CBI while the Delhi case is under investigation of the CBI, the spokesperson said.
A reliable source information has been received alleging that Agrawal had approached Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Greater Noida for getting relief in his case from CBI, he said, adding the source has also revealed Bhagwan further conveyed about the cases to Burhanuddin.
Citing a source, he said Bhagwan had arranged a meeting between Agrawal and Burhanuddin during which the officer agreed to pay Rs 1.5 crore in installments for getting the possible relief in his case, especially the case under investigation to the extent of transferring the case to the jurisdiction of Economic Offence Wing, of the state.

Based on the inputs, raids were carried out in the premises of Agrawal and others yesterday and today, he added.
Notably, the government had suspended Agrawal after his premises were raided by the Income Tax department in 2010 and handed over the case to EOW. However, his suspension was revoked later.