CBI today carried out searches at the residential and official premises of a senior official of Hotel Oberoi Maidens and employees of North Delhi Municipal Corporation in connection with alleged graft to clear unauthorised construction at the hotel's heritage building.
The agency teams swooped down at 14 locations including the Hotel Oberoi Maidens after registering a case against its executive vice-president Raja Ram Shankar and employees of the municipal corporation, CBI sources said.
The case related to alleged exchange of Rs 10 lakh as bribe to allow an unauthorised construction at the hotel--a 110-year old heritage building in old city--in violation of the norms.
Despite calls, no one in the hotel gave comments. SMSes also remained unanswered.
Three employees of the civic body-- A K Singh, executive engineer, Rajesh Wadhwa, superintendent engineer and Satish, a beldar--have earlier been booked by CBI in a separate case of bribe involving co-founder of mobile phone company Micromax.
Other officials who have been named include Deputy Commissioner Hamendra Kumar, Assistant Engineer M K Gupta, Junior engineer Pushan Vishwas and other unknown officials.
According to the laid down norms, no construction can be carried out in the hotel Oberoi Maidens without permission from Archaeological Survey of India and other regulatory bodies as it is an heritage building.
Shankar had allegedly done an unauthorised construction in the name of repairs in the hotel which was in violation of the norms. When the unauthorised construction came to light it was demolised by the civic body.
In January, Shankar again moved to the municipal corporation seeking permission to do repairs in the hotels which remained pending till April.
In April, the civic body gave the permission for the constructions which was allegedly in the violation of rules and regulations. It is alleged that to facilitate this permission, Rs 10 lakh was paid to various officials of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation who have been booked in the case.
