Ayodhya: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two employees of the Ayodhya Cantonment Board including a contractual Junior Engineer (JE) in a case where his mate demanded and accepted a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a contractor for according permission for wood lifting, an official said on Wednesday.
The arrests came a day after the CBI registered a case against a mate of the Cantonment Board, Ayodhya on allegations that the accused demanded Rs 15,000 from the complainant who sought permission to lift wood which was already allotted to him.
A CBI spokesperson said that the case was registered against accused a mate of cantonment board, on allegations of demanding undue advantage from the complainant for issuance of Allotment Letter (Permission Letter) for lifting wood held at Cantonment Board, Ayodhya which was allotted to complainant after auction held by cantonment board, for Rs 1,37,500.
"CBI laid a trap and caught the accused mate red-handed while demanding and accepting the bribe of Rs 10,000 from the complainant. Subsequently, a controlled call revealed the complicity of JE (contractual employee), Cantonment Board, Ayodhya, UP in the offence, who was also apprehended," the spokesperson said in a statement. The official said both the accused were arrested and were being produced before the competent court on Wednesday.
Searches at various locations are in progress in connection with the case, a source said.
Based on the complaint from the contractor from Ayodhya, the CBI's Anti-Corruption Bureau(ACB) team arrived in the city on Tuesday afternoon itself to lay the trap. They had locked the office and have checked all the employees before they allowed them to leave late in the night.
It is learnt that the arrested Class IV employee is identified as Vijay Kumar and he stays in the office itself.
On information, Cantt police station in-charge Amarendra Bahadur Singh went to take stock of the situation so that he can report it to his superiors. When he arrived at the Cantonment Board office, he was stopped by the ACB sleuths.
Singh said the gate to the office was locked. "The ACB team's vehicle was parked inside the office compound, but we were not allowed to go inside," he said.
On 6 September, the CBI team raided the Cantonment Board office in connection with the probe into a tender scam worth crores of rupees. The investigation of the case is underway.
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