New Delhi: Two Navy soldiers, a contractor, and a private citizen have all been charged with corruption by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a FIR filed over unpaid bills.
Under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 7(a) and 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, a FIR was filed against Area Accounts Office, CDA (Navy), Visakhapatnam senior auditor Telikicherla Ramana Kumar, data entry operator Besetti D. Danthi Nokeswara Rao, contractor Bhanupratap Yadav, and private individual Subhasis Mishra.
The CBI mentioned in the FIR that the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Navy), Ministry of Defence, is responsible for payments, accounting, and internal audit of expenditures and receipts of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard.
The area accounts office, Visakhapatnam, is responsible for payments, accounting, and internal audit of expenditures and receipts of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard in Visakhapatnam.
According to the CBI, credible information suggested that two employees of the Visakhapatnam region accounting office, senior auditor Telikicherla Ramana Kumar and data entry operator Nokeswara Rao, were accepting bribes to expedite the payment of contractors' overdue invoices.
"We initiated an inquiry and discovered that Bhanupratap Yadav, a contractor, asked Ramana Kumar to clear his pending bills worth Rs 26 lakh.
"But Kumar asked Yadav to pay a bribe if he wanted his bills to be cleared. Yadav informed Rao, the data entry operator, that he met with an accident while going to their office and requested not to halt the processing of his bills," said an ED official.
Yadav told Kumar and Rao on June 12 that he would pay the bribe through Blue Sea Marine Engineering employee Subhasis Mishra.
"Based on this information, we have lodged a FIR. A probe is on into the matter," said the official.—Inputs from Agencies
