CBI fished out cash bundles from toilet

Chennai: The arrest of two Central excise officers on April 9 by CBI was not an easy trap by any standard.

According to sources in the agency, the sleuths had to fish out the cash bundle from the toilet, which superintendent Chandra Sekhar tried to flush when he came to know that a team from the CBI anti-corruption branch had landed in his office in Nandanam.

“Only after questioning the superintendent, he disclosed that he had tried to dispose of the money he had collected, in the toilet. The CBI team then had to fish it out from the toilet,” sources said.

The CBI had arrested Chandra Sekhar and assistant commissioner, Lionel Fernandez, saying that they had divided equally the total amount of Rs 11,000 given as bribe by R. Bojan, managing partner of RBS Group, for handing over the copy of the accepted general bond for Rs 20 lakh.

The money was to be split equally between the two officers. The sleuths had recovered Rs 5,500 from Chandra Sekhar.

But they could not recover the rest of the amount completely from Fernandez, who claimed that he had not received any money from Chandra Sekhar.

“But a Rs 500 note, which was part of the bribe amount believed to have been received by Lionel Fernandez, was used by him to buy sweet from a shop nearby. That currency note was recovered from the shop,” CBI sources said.

However, CBI sleuths are clueless about the rest of the bribe amount allegedly received by the assistant commissioner.

The CBI team on April 9 had also conducted searches at five places belonging to the two and seized incriminating documents and cash Rs 29.15 lakh along with Rs 18.50 lakh worth fixed deposit receipts.