In a bribery case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Arvind Kale, General Manager and Project Director National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on March 3. He was arrested from Nagpur, Maharashtra.
The authorities said that in exchange for the smooth progress of awarded works, the issuance of completion certificates, the processing of bills, and other benefits related to the various road projects that the NHAI awarded, three more senior officials of the agency allegedly accepted bribes from the accused individuals associated with the private company.
In this case, the CBI arrested two more senior highway officials, Rajendra Kumar Gupta and Hemant Kumar on March 4. After several search operations at the locations associated with booked officials, the cash seizure has reached INR 2 crore.
A total of eight officials have been arrested in this case so far.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had filed a case against officials of the agency, M/s Bansal Construction Works Pvt Ltd, a private company based in Bhopal, five private individuals, including two Directors and employees of the aforementioned company, and unknown others. The accusations were that the directors of the Bhopal-based company had been paying bribes to various NHAI public servants through their employees in exchange for the NHAI issuing completion certificates, processing bills, facilitating the awarding of works, and other things.
An official from CBI said sources have revealed that, in order to speed up the payment of outstanding invoices, Anil and Kunal Bansal, directors of the private company, have also been paying bribes to Rajendra Kumar Gupta, Deputy General Manager & Project Director, NHAI, Bhopal, through their employee Nitin Rajak.
The CBI official said that as per the information received from another source, on February 7, 2024, Nitin Rajak went to Rajendra Kumar Gupta's office and gave him the bribe money to pay off outstanding expenses. The source goes on to say that on February 8, 2024, Nitin Rajak reported to Kunal Bansal that he had given Rajendra Gupta a bribe of INR 8 lakhs, meaning that all of Gupta's desired bribe dues had been paid.
The CBI official said that their source also claims that Anil and Kunal Bansal paid Hemant Kumar, Project Director, NHAI, Vidisha, MP, bribes through their worker TMS Rao in order to execute the payment mobilisation advance for the Vidisha project. The source further shared with the official that in order to settle their outstanding debts, including unpaid bills, the company's directors have been paying bribes to Brijesh Kumar Sahu, Deputy General Manager & Project Director, NHAI, Harda, MP, via TMS Rao.
Additionally, according to the information shared with officials from their source, TMS Rao gave the bribe money to Hemant Kumar at his Vidisha home on February 27, 2024, and to Brijesh Kumar Sahu at his Harda home on February 28, 2024.
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