A Thane court on Friday held that the CBI arrests of a senior IRS officer posted in Maharashtra’s Raigad district and two others in an alleged Rs 1.5-crore bribery case were “not legal”, citing arrest procedure “was not in accordance with law”, and ordered their release on personal bonds of Rs 15,000 each.
A Thane court on Friday held that the CBI arrests of a senior IRS officer and two others in an alleged Rs 1.5-crore bribery case were “not legal” and ordered their release on personal bonds of Rs 15,000 each.
The CBI had produced Additional Commissioner of CGST Vinay Kumar Kantheti, a 2009-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, CGST Superintendent Rakesh Kumar Sinha and private person Narinder Rajput before the court on Friday, hours after their arrest, seeking police custody for further questioning.
The court also rejected the CBI’s request for their custodial interrogation, noting that the bribe money has already been seized and, in a personal search, mobiles of all accused were also recovered; hence, there were no “satisfactory reasons” for further custodial interrogation. “CBI will again approach the concerned court for obtaining custody of the accused persons for proper investigation of this bribery case as CBI has scrupulously followed all legal requirements for the arrest of the accused persons, including communicating the grounds of arrest to the concerned,” sources said. In its order, the court noted that the investigating officer had submitted a case diary containing “papers tied with a tag” which were “loosely tightened”. The court, while refusing to grant police custody, said the CBI had already seized the alleged bribe money and recovered the mobiles of all three accused during their personal searches. It found no “satisfactory reasons” for further custodial interrogation.
