CBI books 2 home ministry officials for bribery

Two home ministry officials, one of whom had promised to wield his influence to remove the Daman administrator, were booked for bribery in two cases by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday.

Two home ministry officials, one of whom had promised to wield his influence to remove the Daman administrator, were booked for bribery in two cases by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday.

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The CBI registered a case against O. Ravi, a1983-batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, on a charge of accepting Rs 25 lakh as bribe from a Daman-based distillery to get another IAS officer, Daman administrator Satya Gopal, transferred out.

Gopal had tightened the noose around distillers in the Union territory that led to the detection of evasion of excise duty in excess of Rs 300 crore.

Home ministry officials said Ravi had been placed under arrest and his suspension orders were being issued to send a stern message to all officers in the ministry.

The CBI, however, insisted they had only arrested Ashok Khemani of Royal Distillery and local excise inspectors. In the second case, the CBI also searched the residential and office premises of Radhey Shyam Sharma, director (provisioning) at the home ministry’s police modernisation division in connection with the purchase of bulletproof jackets for central police forces.

An IRS officer of the 1984 batch, Sharma had allegedly accepted Rs 10 lakh from a private firm that did not bag the contract for the supply of 59,000 bulletproof jackets.