Rs 2 lakh bribe lands I-T chief in CBI custody

The CBI has arrested income-tax commissioner (appeal) Ramful Meena and a chartered accountant for demanding and accepting a bribe from an engineer.

Meena, who was arrested on Friday, had demanded Rs 10 lakh from the techie to give a closure report in his favour, but finally settled for Rs 2.20 lakh.

CBI joint director Rishi Raj Singh said, "According to the techie, Meena began harassing him after he approached him in connection with his tax assessment for 2006-07." Meena said the engineer was liable to pay Rs 20 lakh, and demanded the bribe to dispose of his appeal.

Meena, a 1987-batch IRS officer, was picked up from his official residence on Nepean Sea Road. Both Meena and the CA were produced in court on Saturday, and have been remanded in police custody till July 12.

According to Singh, Meena insisted on the bribe despite the complainant pleading with him that he was just an employee in a firm. Finally, after negotiation, Meena asked the engineer to contact U A Pai, a CA who would receive the money on his behalf.

However, the engineer approached the CBI and lodged a complaint. He was given a phone and conversation-recording equipment and sent with the money. With police officers keeping a close watch, the engineer met Pai at a hotel in Fort with the bribe money. Cornered, Pai reportedly created a scene, trying to push the policemen and insisting that he had nothing to do with the money. However, it didn't take long before he admitted to being party to the wrongdoing.

Pai revealed that Meena had instructed him to hand over the money to a person who would come with the I-T commissioner's visiting card with his signature on it. "We waited for that person, and as soon as he came, we found the card signed by Meena on him," Singh said. According to CBI sources, the man who had come with Meena's card had collected money on his behalf on three other occasions too.

Meanwhile, when the CBI team reached Meena's residence, he got suspicious and tried to throw his mobile phone out. It is learnt that Meena used to use the mobile to talk to his contacts. The I-T chief was also found to be in possession of three more cellphones, all in fictitious names and belonging to other telecom circles. It is suspected that they too were being used for similar illegal transactions.

The CBI is scrutinizing Meena's call records and looking into a bank locker in Jaipur belonging to him. It has come to light that Meena has a house each in Delhi and Dausa (Rajasthan) and a plot in Jaipur. Searches are also on at Pai's residence and two offices. Incriminating documents have reportedly been seized.

When asked about several income tax officials being caught for taking bribes but being reinstated after getting bail, Singh said, "When we receive complaints, we take action. Our job is to act on complaints and submit our reports to the court."

CBI: Dayanidhi Maran a suspect in 2G scam case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in
its status report to the Supreme Court on
Wednesday on the 2G scam has a pointed
finger at Dayanidhi Maran, now the textiles
minister, for sitting on Aircel's application
for a spectrum license as a consequence of
which it was sold to Malaysian company
Maxis.
The CBI also told an apex court bench of
justice GS Singhvi and justice AK Ganguly
that it needed time till Aug 31 to complete
its investigation in the 2G spectrum scam.
Though the report was presented in a
sealed envelope, the references to Maran
became clear during the reading of its
extracts by senior counsel KK Venugopal,
who appeared for the CBI. Maran held the
telecom portfolio 2004-07.
There are allegations that Maxis
Communication bought 74% stake in Aircel
and the company was later allotted more
circles to operate in.
Maxis Communication, through its
subsidiary Astro, then invested around
Rs.600 crore in Sun DTH belonging to the
Sun TV Network owned by Maran's family, it
has been alleged.
The CBI had April 2 filed its first chargesheet
in the 2G spectrum scam. The chargesheet
was filed in the special court of CBI judge
O.P. Saini.
It named former communications minister A
Raja, former telecom secretary Siddharth
Behura, Swan Telecom promoter Shahid
Usman Balwa, Raja's aide RK Chandolia,
Swan Telecom's Vinod Goenka, Unitech's
Wireless Sanjay Chandra and three
executives of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani
Group -- Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and
Surendra Pipara.
In its April 25 supplementary chargesheet,
the CBI named DMK chief M Karunanidhi's
daughter Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV
managing director Sharad Kumar as co-
conspirators after it traced an illegal money
trail of Rs 214 crore in the scam.
The supplementary chargesheet also named
Karim Morani as well as Asif Balwa and
Rajeev Agarwal of Kusegaon Realty.