Chhattisgarh: IAS officer tries to bribe CBI with Rs 1.5 crore

Raipur: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday registered a case against Chhattisgarh’s tainted bureaucrat on charges of payment of Rs 1.5 crore as gratification for help in a corruption case that is under CBI investigation.

The CBI said Rs 45 lakh was allegedly handed by IAS officer Babu Lal Agrawal to a hawala dealer at Raipur on February 11 and was to be delivered at Delhi. It also said the recipients agreed to accept part gratification payment in gold, to be delivered by the accused’s brother-in-law.

The “offer of bribe to settle corruption cases” by the 1988-batch IAS officer to some senior CBI officials through a hawala trader apparently made the investigating agency raid his residence and other premises in Raipur, Hyderabad and Noida.

 “During investigation 2 kg of gold was recovered and searches were conducted at the premises of accused persons and hawala operators at Raipur, Hyderabad, New Delhi (Noida),” the CBI stated.

Agrawal reportedly sought closure of a couple of corruption cases against him. The CBI had six years ago registered a case against Agrawal accusing him of cheating (under section 420 and prevention of corruption act) and fraudulent practices.

In 2011, he was charge sheeted for allegedly fabricating records of his bank lockers after Income Tax(I-T) raids recovered huge money from them.

In May 2010, a search conducted by the I-T department found Agrawal possessing 220 bank accounts, massive unaccounted money and assets worth several crores.

The names of the bank account holders were found to be “fictitious” and the department suspected the officer’s involvement in hawala transactions.

The Raman Singh government had suspended him in 2010 but revoked the decision four months later.