CBI conducts multiple searches against Railway officials

CBI today conducted multiple searches in over a dozen locations in the country in connection with two corruption cases registered by it against senior Railway officials based in Madhya Pradesh.
Searches were conducted in at least six cities in Madhya Pradesh like Bhopal, Jabalpur, Katni, Satna, Itarsi and Chhindwara apart from Delhi, Jaipur, Jind (Haryana) and Allahabad, Agra, Mathura and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in connection with a case registered to probe the alleged connivance of the officials with a Delhi-based contractor to cheat the exchequer in a government work related to construction of foundations of electric poles, CBI sources said.

The agency has registered two FIRs in this regard in December last year pertaining to the said work being done between Maikpur-Satna and between Satna and Jabalpur.
A CBI spokesperson identified the accused Railway officials as the then Executive Electrical Engineers D D Srivastava and M D Kori based in Jabalpur, Senior Section Engineers Manoj K Prabhakar, K K Khare, A K Tiwari, Sanjay Meena and few others.
It was alleged, the spokesperson said, that during railway electrification work awarded to a Delhi based private firm identified as Cobra India Private Limited between Manikpur-Satna-Rewa sections and Satna-Jabalpur section "less construction of foundations of electric poles was done in comparison to the Research Design and Standards Organisation approved drawings but the said Railway officials dishonestly inflated measurements of foundations in the measurement books and in bills of the contractor and thereby provided undue pecuniary benefits to the said private company."

The spokesperson added that "incriminating" documents were seized by search teams during the operation.