CBI searches 11 locations in Lucknow, NCR in connection with sugar mills disinvestment scam case

The CBI carried out searches at 11 locations in Lucknow and NCR in connection with the sugar mills disinvestment scam case during Mayawati's tenure as Uttar Pradesh chief minister, officials said Tuesday.

Across the country, searches were conducted at 110 locations in 19 states by the agency in cases of alleged corruption, arms smuggling and criminal misconduct, they said.

The CBI has registered 30 fresh cases, they said.

The agency has carried out searches at 11 locations in Lucknow and NCR in connection with the sugar mills disinvestment scam case, the officials said.

The agency searched premises of former IAS officers Netram and Vinay Priya Dhune and sons of former MLC Iqbal Singh -- Wajid Ali and Mohammed Javed, the they said.

Netram also held the position of secretary to Mayawati when she was the chief minister of UP.

In April 2019, the CBI registered an FIR in connection with the sugar scam case besides six preliminary enquiries in which the probe is underway, they said.

The search operation also covers an FIR against former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The operation is underway at Krrish Builders in Jasola, New Delhi, they said.

The operation is spread across Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Jammu, Srinagar, Pune, Jaipur, Goa, Raipur, Hyderabad, Madurai, Kolkata, Rourkela, Ranchi, Bokaro, Lucknow, Kanpur and other locations in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar.

Details of cases in which the searches are being carried out is being kept secret till the operation gets over, the officials said.

This is the second massive search operation conducted by the agency in a week. A similar operation was carried out last Tuesday against banking fraud accused.

The premises of K A Duggal, the then CMD, BICL, Kanpur, company secretary K V Vajpayee are being searched for alleged irregularities in tendering process while selling the properties of BICL.

The cases in which search operations are going on also include cheating of a Mumbai-based businessman who was sold 980 acres of land worth Rs 11 crore in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh on the basis of forged documents.

The CBI has taken over investigation on the orders of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

They also include case of a missing woman from Jaipur in Rajasthan, disbursal of 13 housing loans worth Rs 3 crore by a SBI branch manager in Haridwar.