Agency raids 11 places in UP also to probe sugar mills scam during Mayawati regime
In a nationwide operation, the CBI on Tuesday conducted searches at around 110 places in 19 States/Union Territories, including in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Jammu, Srinagar, besides 11 locations in Lucknow and NCR in connection with the sugar mills disinvestment scam case during Mayawati’s tenure as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
The CBI has registered about 30 separate cases relating to corruption, criminal misconduct and arms smuggling among others before launching the pan-India search operation.
The agency searched the premises of former IAS officers Netram and Vinay Priya Dhune and sons of former MLC Iqbal Singh — Wajid Ali and Mohammed Javed — in the graft case relating to the sugar mills disinvestment case, officials said.
Netram also held the position of secretary to Mayawati during her stint as UP Chief Minister.
In April this year, the CBI had registered an FIR in connection with the sugar mills scam case besides six preliminary enquiries in which the probe is underway, the officials further 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 in the national Capital, they said.
The search operations were conducted in 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.
Officials said details of cases in which the searches are continuing are being kept secret till the operation is over.
This is the second massive search operation conducted by the agency in a week. A similar operation was carried out last Tuesday against a host of accused in banking fraud cases.
The premises of KA Duggal, the then CMD, BICL, Kanpur, and company secretary KV 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 into this case following a directive from the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
They also include a 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 among others.
Sources said the agency also searched the premises of former ED official Bollineni Srinivasa Gandhi in Hyderabad and Vijaywada in connection with a disproportionate assets case against him. Gandhi was presently holding the post of superintendent in Central GST anti-evasion wing in Hyderabad. During his earlier stint in ED, he had probed money laundering cases against present Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy.
