Mumbai, June 5 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a senior official of the West Central Railway for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a contractor in exchange for processing payments and releasing dues related to contract work, an official statement said on Friday.

The arrested official has been identified as West Central Railway’s Deputy Chief Engineer-II (Construction), Narayan Singh Bundela.

According to the CBI, a case was registered on June 4, based on a complaint alleging that Bundela had demanded an undue advantage of Rs 1 lakh from the complainant for facilitating the release of a security deposit, clearance of pending bills, and payment of Price Variation Clause (PVC) dues amounting to approximately Rs 1 crore.

Acting on the complaint, the CBI laid a trap and apprehended the accused official red-handed while allegedly demanding and accepting the bribe amount from the complainant in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar.

Following the arrest, the agency conducted searches at premises linked to the accused. During a search of his guest house room, CBI officials recovered unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 62,000. Searches at his residence also led to the recovery of documents purportedly related to investments in real estate, which are being examined as part of the investigation.

The accused was taken into custody and was produced before the competent court in Jabalpur on Friday.

Earlier this month, on June 1, the CBI arrested the Branch Manager of State Bank of India (SBI) in Jharkhand’s Godda district in connection with a bribery case.

The CBI, in a similar manner, arrested a Nominated Member of the Meerut Cantonment Board in Uttar Pradesh in a bribery case.

The arrest was made in the last week of May after the CBI caught the accused red-handed accepting the bribe of Rs 3 lakh.

The accused has been identified as Satish Kumar Sharma, investigators said.

–IANS

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