Nalco chief held on bribe charge

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested National Aluminum Company (Nalco) Chairman A K Srivastava and his wife Chandni Srivastava for allegedly accepting bribe.

CBI also arrested Srivastava's accomplice, Bhushanlal Bajaj, and his wife Anita Bajaj for allegedly acting as a conduit. Srivastava was allegedly accepting a bribe from the Bhatia Group through his conduit at the time of arrest. He has been charged with abusing his official position.

CBI has recovered Rs 30 lakh cash and 10 kg gold from Srivastava’s premises in Bhubaneswar and New Delhi.

Followed a tipoff, Srivastava caught Chandni Srivastava and Anita Bajaj with a three-kg gold brick at Bank of Maharashtra’s branch in UPSC, New Delhi.

CBI seized Rs 15 lakh cash from another locker in the bank.

“Chandni was operating a bank locker taken in the name of Anita Bajaj. She was going to deposit the gold received in bribe into that locker when we caught them,” said a CBI official.

“We have conducted raids on the office and residence of Nalco CMD on the basis of information received from our headquarters in Delhi. The searches are still going on”, said MS Sunder Rajan, superintendent of police, CBI, Bhubaneswar.

Srivastav had joined as Nalco CMD in October 2009.