NSSO officer arrested for obtaining bribe via wife’s G-Pay account

CBI arrests NSSO officer Shankar Raghorte for allegedly demanding a ₹10,000 bribe from a businessman for ASI returns assistance.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai unit of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested a senior official of the National Statistical Survey Office (NSSO) for allegedly demanding and obtaining a bribe of ₹10,000 from a businessman, falsely claiming he had helped the latter submitting returns for the Annual Survey for Industries (ASI) for two firms.

NSSO officer arrested for obtaining bribe via wife’s G-Pay account

The accused officer, Shankar Raghorte, a senior statistical officer at NSSO in Belapur, allegedly harassed the complainant to pay a bribe to his wife’s account via Google Pay.

The complainant is a director at a private firm in Bhandup. His father is a proprietor of another private firm at Byculla; both manufacture plastic files and folders. As per the complaint, he received nine notices from October to December, 2024, about filing returns for the ASI, an agency official said.

On January 27, after the businessman had submitted the returns, Raghorte allegedly met him and claimed to have helped file returns for his and his father’s company. While handing him the visit reports for the two companies, the accused allegedly first demanded a bribe for his help, then harassed the businessman.

“The accused himself shared his wife’s G-Pay number details with the complainant and asked him to transfer the bribe amount to the account,” a CBI official said.

The businessman submitted his complaint to the CBI on Monday, and Raghorte was booked under section 7 (demand of undue advantage by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI verified the allegation in the presence of the independent witnesses and prepared a Verification Report. Raghorte was produced before a special court where he was remanded to the CBI’s custody till Thursday.