Thaindian News

Mumbai, June 30 (IANS) The CBI has arrested four people and busted a corruption racket involving officials of the canteen stores department (CSD) of the defence ministry and a private company, an official said here Saturday.

Bikas Ranjan Daschaudhary, joint general manager, CSD Mumbai, was caught while accepting a bribe of Rs.1.25 lakh from officials of private company Sankalp Consumer Products Pvt Ltd.

Three company officials, including one from Pune, were also nabbed. All of them will be presented before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court here Sunday.

According to the CBI, following a complaint, a case was registered against the company which was allegedly acting as an unauthorised marketing arm representing several firms.

The SCPPL, through its director Milind Govilkar, and CSD officials allegedly conspired to manipulate the requirements of the stores which benefitted the company.

Besides Daschaudhary and Govilkar, who was nabbed in Pune, the CBI took into custody Vilas Harer and Manohar Vibhute.

The CSD officials helped SCPPL at various levels like introducing their items, price revisions, creating demand and allocating budget.

In return for these favourable decisions, Govilkar paid huge amounts of bribe to the CSD officials, the CBI said.

Daschaudhary was caught accepting the bribe from Govilkar in south Mumbai.

The CBI carried out searches at 20 places across the country and recovered incriminating documents, cash and jewellery.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the CSD operates five regional offices, 34 depots and 3,825 canteens (stores) all over India to provide consumer goods to the active duty and retired personnel of the armed forces.