After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested three persons from Chandigarh in the Food Corporation of India (FCI) scam unearthed last week, all of them were presented in the CBI court on Monday.
Those arrested include Rajiv Kumar Mishra, DGM Quality Control/Personnel of Chandigarh with permanent residence in Dwarka New Delhi; Satish Verma, Manager DO, FCI Lab Chandigarh and Ravinder Singh Khaira, owner of Guru Kripa Rice and Agro Industries.
While the CBI had asked for nine days remand of the accused persons, the court has granted them four-day remand and the accused have to be produced in court next on January 20. The prosecution have also submitted an application to record the voice samples of the accused and another accused Sudeep Singh named in the FIR who is said to be admitted in hospital but is being investigated. This was also allowed by the court.
The accused were arrested giving and accepting a bribe of ₹50,000. A first information report (FIR) was registered on January 10 in New Delhi against 74 people and entities, including 34 serving and three retired officers of FCI, 17 private individuals, 20 rice mills and grain merchants, and raids were launched at over 50 locations in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi as a corruption racket involving FCI officials of various ranks, rice millers, grain merchants and middlemen in the procurement, storage and distribution of foodgrains across several parts of north India was unearthed.