CBI recovers Rs 6 lakh, property documents from residences of arrested DRT official

Tiwari, a resident of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, was nabbed from inside the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) office in Sector 17, by the anti-corruption branch of the CBI on Thursday after a case under under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act was registered against him. Tiwari was produced in the court of a special CBI judge on Friday that remanded him in judicial custody.

Sources said that besides the Rs 6 lakh in cash, and some property papers, a bunch of other ‘incriminating documents’ too had been recovered from the residences of Tiwari during a search by two CBI teams.

Officials in the CBI said that a Kaithal resident had told the bureau that he had submitted a bid in an auction for purchasing a plant and machinery. The man further stated that he was the highest bidder in the auction and had deposited the total amount within stipulated time.

It was further alleged that the complainant submitted an affidavit in DRT office in Sector 17 mentioning that some plant and machinery were missing and requested that either all remaining machinery be provided to him or he get an amount equivalent to the missing machinery returned/refunded to him.

Sources said that Recovery Officer, Sunil Kumar Tiwari, had demanded a bribe of Rs 2 lakh from the complainant for settling his matter. “Later, the complainant managed to negotiate the bribe amount down to Rs 70,000,” the CBI official said.

“On Thursday, the CBI laid a trap and caught the Recovery Officer red-handed while he was in the process of accepting the bribe of Rs.70,000,” a CBI spokesman said. Sources said that before laying the trap, the CBI personnel had collected all relevant evidence — including the recording of conversation between the accused and complainant establishing the demand of bribe — to nail the accused.