CHENNAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Chennai has registered a case against an employee in the ministry of shipping working at Chennai Port Trust for allegedly cheating a person of 97lakh by promising to get his son a job in the port.
The investigating agency booked the case against K Poopathy based on a complaint by N Devaraj, 63, a resident of Vyasarpadi.
In the complaint, Devaraj who retired as a senior technician from Hindustan Petroleum alleged that Poopathy promised to get his son a job as assistant traffic manager at Chennai Port.
Poopathy introduced himself as a personal assistant to the chief engineer of the port. He said the chief engineer wielded power to appoint people in the port and demanded a bribe of 1crore from Devaraj for the job.
The job in question was that of a gazetted officer. Poopathy collected 97lakh as bribe. Devaraj paid the amount in instalments in cash and through cheque payments between December 2016 and November 2019 by using his retirement benefits, savings, pledging gold jewellery of his daughter at a local pawn shop, mortgaging his property as well as borrowing money on interest.
Devaraj said Poopathy began to ignore his phone calls soon after the amount was paid and on February 27, he was forced to give a written acceptance that he got back his entire money from Poopathy after some people threatened him. Later, Devaraj filed a complaint with the chief vigilance officer of the port, who forwarded the same to the CBI along with documents and audio of conversations.