Guntakal divisional railway manager, five officers arrested by CBI in bribery case

New Delhi: The CBI has arrested a divisional railway manager (DRM) in the South Central Railways and five other officers in a case of alleged bribery of Rs 11 lakh for extending favours in contracts, officials said on Saturday.

Besides DRM of Guntakal Division Vineet Singh, the probe agency has arrested Senior Divisional Finance Manager (DFM) Kunda Pradeep Babu, Senior Divisional Engineer (DEN) Coordination U Akki Reddy, Office Superintendent M Balaji and Account Assistant D Lakshmi Pathi Raju, they said.

Kuppam Rameshkumar Reddy, the director of Bengaluru-based company C N R Projects India Private Limited, and Hyderabad-based middleman N Rahamathulla were also taken into custody by the CBI.

As part of the probe, the CBI conducted searches at Guntakal, Anantapur, Nellore, Tirupati, Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Bengaluru which led to the recovery of several incriminating documents and digital devices. The investigation is continuing.

The federal probe agency has booked 13 individuals, including the seven arrested, and the company CNR Projects for large-scale corruption in the award of tenders in Guntakal Division of the South Central Railways.

The officers allegedly obtained undue benefits in the award of various tenders, in the execution of the awarded works and in the expeditious processing of the bills, officials said.

"It was also alleged that the accused public servants have been indulging in corrupt practices in awarding various tenders under their jurisdiction and clearing the inflated bills of the contractors, thus causing wrongful gain to themselves and wrongful loss to the government exchequer," a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.

It was further alleged that DRM Vineet Singh demanded illegal gratification at the rate of 0.5 per cent of the total tender amount in the form of gold jewellery, he said, adding that the then senior DEN coordination allegedly demanded Rs 20 lakh.

The accused private person planned to pay Rs 10 lakh each to the senior DFM and the Additional DRM of Guntakal Division after the Lok Sabha polls.

Kuppam Rameshkumar Reddy had allegedly asked M Bhima Shankar, who represented another Bengaluru-based company MVV Satyanarayana, to deliver at least Rs 10 lakh to DEN U Akki Reddy who allegedly was threatening to cause hindrances in their work otherwise, the FIR stated.

It was also alleged that arrested Account Assistant Raju had asked Kuppam Rameshkumar Reddy to urgently pay the bribe to Kunda Pradeep Babu for a tender.

"The CBI laid a trap and Rs 10 lakh delivered to Senior DFM and Rs 50,000 each to the office superintendent and another accounts assistant were recovered.

"Jewellery taken as bribe was recovered during a search operation at the residence of the said DRM, South Central Railway, Guntakal Division. Public servants who accepted the bribe and accused private persons who delivered the bribe amount and jewellery i.e. the said director of the Bengaluru-based company and a Hyderabad-based accused private person were caught," the CBI spokesperson said.