Days after arresting two men, including a Delhi Police inspector for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1 crore, the CBI has summoned a 2012-batch IPS officer of Haryana cadre in connection with the Puducherry counterfeit medicine racket case.
The officer, who has been asked to appear on Friday, allegedly told the prime accused in the case that he could “arrange” relief in the CBI cases through his “connections” within the agency. For the purpose, he demanded Rs 3 crore from N Raja alias Valliappan alias Rajasekhar — the prime accused in the Rs 5,000-crore counterfeit medicine racket in Puducherry.
A source said the IPS officer in question is currently serving in a post of Regional Director with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). He had already taken Rs 1 crore from Raja on the promise of securing him relief, the source added.
“We have identified him and, after informing his department, we have summoned him to find out more details,” a source said.
On June 8, the CBI had registered an FIR against Raja; Pradeep Kumar Singh, an inspector with the Police Crime Branch’s Southern Range; and Rajkumar alias Madhanraj, who is alleged to have acted as an intermediary.
The FIR also names unknown public servants and private individuals. “Raja had arranged a payment of Rs 1 crore through hawala transaction. The arrested inspector received the payment through a hawala operator and gave it to one Prabhat, who was an acquaintance of an IPS officer. Singh kept the remaining Rs 25 lakh in his house and the CBI had arrested Singh and Rajkumar with the balance amount of Rs 24.70 lakh,” the CBI said.
The amount was the first instalment of a larger payoff, according to CBI.
A source said that according to the FIR, Singh had been facilitating the payment of illegal gratification by the accused who was attempting to secure undue relief in the CBI cases.
“After the fresh FIR, Raja started looking for a source in the CBI and met Inspector Singh. He was told that his senior officer would help him and would charge a fee for doing so,” an official said.
According to the FIR, Raja and Rajkumar met Singh at Aerocity on May 14. “Singh allegedly escorted both of them to the office of an unidentified senior public servant located in the vicinity. The senior public servant allegedly assured Raja of favourable relief in the CBI cases,” the FIR alleged.
It further alleged that on May 16, Raja told his wife that the public servant had agreed to help in return for Rs 3 crore and had sought an advance of Rs 1.5 crore.
“Raja then allegedly began arranging the money. Rajkumar later travelled to Vadodara and met Singh to work out the modalities for delivering the bribe money to the public servant in Delhi. After the meeting, both allegedly travelled to Delhi together. Raja asked his wife to keep the funds ready and contacted a hawala operator in to transfer Rs 1 crore to Delhi as part of the advance bribe payment,” the FIR said.
The money was to be delivered to Singh in the Chandni Chowk area on June 8 but before that could happen, the accused were caught by CBI, it added.
The counterfeit and spurious medicines manufacturing operation was uncovered following raids by the police and the CB-CID in Puducherry last year, during which massive stocks of fake drugs and raw materials were seized. Raja was arrested in December. The Puducherry Police later found the involvement of several politicians, and the investigation was transferred to the CBI. The agency officially registered a fresh case against Raja in March this year.
