The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is conducting raids at the office of the Joint Drug Controller of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), under the jurisdiction of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in connection with a bribery case. The CBI said the raids were going on in Delhi.
A source told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that Eswara Reddy, the Joint Drug Controller, had allegedly demanded the bribe from the complainant. After receiving the complaint, the CBI lodged an FIR and formed a team of its officials. The source said that seeing the gravity of the matter, the CBI team took legal opinion before conducting the raid.
"It was decided that Rs 3 lakh will be handed over as a bribe. We have detained Reddy. We are recording the statement to know what was his role in the case," said a CBI official. The official said after recording the statement, he will be produced in court.
In another incident, a day earlier, on Sunday, the CBI had conducted searches at three locations in Mumbai after it registered an FIR against Pune Buildtech Private Limited and its directors for alleged bank fraud of Rs 30 crore in Punjab National Bank during 2013-16, officials said. The searches were conducted at the premises of promoters Ishaq Yusuf Balwa and Javardhan Vinod Goenka and Pune Buildtech Private Limited, earlier known as Dynamix Balwas Resorts Private Limited, in Mumbai, they said.
The Dynamix Balwas Group had faced a CBI probe in the 2G spectrum allocation case, but all the accused were acquitted by a special court. The fresh case pertains to Pune Buildtech Private Limited, which was set up in 1997 to build five-star hotels and resorts. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of DB Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., which is promoted by the Balwas Group and the Dynamix Group, Punjab National Bank had said in its complaint, which is now part of the FIR.
It had planned a five-star hotel in Yerwada, Pune which was financed by PNB (Rs 102 crore) and Allahabad Bank (now Indian Bank) (Rs 102 crore). PNB had disbursed Rs 30.50 crore till 2011 after which further disbursement was stopped.
The project was scrapped and later converted into a residential tower project for which the company approached Bank of India in 2013 and loans were issued. PNB did not take any additional exposure but adjusted the old account for residential buildings. The account again turned into a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2016 as it failed to implement the project. The bank then declared the account as fraud and gave the complaint to the CBI, which has registered the FIR.
With IANS and PTI inputs