CBI busts racket offering Rajya Sabha seats for ₹100 crore
Besides Rajya Sabha seats, the accused persons also promised to arrange governorship and chairmanship of different government organisations in lieu of bribes
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has busted a racket of imposters and arrested four people for allegedly attempting to cheat certain people by assuring them Rajya Sabha births for ₹100 crore, people familiar with the development said.
Besides Rajya Sabha seats, the accused persons also promised to arrange governorship and chairmanship of different government organisations in lieu of bribes, they said.
According to the first information report (FIR), filed on July 15 and reviewed by HT, those named include Kamalakar Premkumar Bandgar of Maharashtra’s Latur, Ravindra Vithal Naik of Karnataka’s Belgaum, and Delhi-NCR-based Mahendra Pal Arora, Abhishek Boora and Mohammed Aijaz Khan.
The FIR alleged that Bandgar posed as a senior CBI officer and flaunted his connections with highly placed officials. He then asked Boora, Arora, Khan and Naik to bring any sort of work that he could fix in lieu of payment of huge illegal gratification.
The accused, the CBI said, conspired with “the sole ulterior motive of cheating private persons by falsely assuring them for arrangement of seats in Rajya Sabha, appointment as governor, appointment as chairman in different government-run organisations under central government ministries and departments against huge pecuniary consideration”.
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Information gathered by the central agency revealed that Boora and Bandgar discussed how the latter’s purported connection with high-ranking officials who play pivotal roles in appointments can be exploited to get the work done.
“It surfaced that the accused were attempting to cheat people by falsely assuring them of candidature for Rajya Sabha against a huge consideration to the tune of ₹100 crores,” the FIR alleged.
The agency said Bandgar, Arora, Khan, and Naik would often drop names of senior bureaucrats and political functionaries to impress clients approaching them for some work, either directly or through a middleman like Abhishek Boora.
It also emerged that Bandgar posed as a senior CBI officer and threatened police officials of various police stations to grant favours to people known to him, or to influence investigations of ongoing cases, the FIR alleged.
The accused have been booked for criminal conspiracy, cheating, and prevention of corruption act.
