Rajya Sabha Seats, Governorship For Rs 100 Crore: CBI Busts Multi-State Racket

One of the accused escaped during the search operation in the wake of attacking CBI officials, the officials said.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office (Source: File photo/AFP)

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has busted a gang promising to get a Rajya Sabha seat for Rs 100 crore, officials said, as reported by news agency PTI. According to the officials, the searches were conducted in connection with the case and four members of the gang were arrested. According to CBI, all these accused used to give false assurances to people to get Rajya Sabha seats, to make them governors, to make them the chairman of any government body, to get posts in ministries and departments and used to cheat them.

One of the accused escaped during the search operation in the wake of attacking CBI officials, the officials said.

An FIR has been registered against him at the local police station for assaulting agency officials, they said.

In FIR, the CBI has named Kamalakar Premkumar Bandgar of Maharashtra's Latur, Ravindra Vithal Naik of Karnataka's Belgaum, and Delhi-NCR-based Mahendra Pal Arora, Abhishek Boora and Mohammed Aijaz Khan regarding the case, the authorities said.

It is claimed that Bandgar was acting like a senior CBI official and flaunting his "connections" with highly placed officials and had asked Boora, Arora, Khan and Naik to bring any kind of work that he could fix in lieu of payment of huge illegal gratification.

They conspired with "the sole ulterior motive of cheating private persons by falsely assuring them for the arrangement of seats in Rajya Sabha, appointment as governor, appointment as chairman in different government-run organisations under central government ministries and departments against huge pecuniary consideration," the FIR alleged.

The CBI received information that they would drop names of senior administrators and political functionaries to impress clients moving toward them for some work either straightforwardly or through mediators like Abhishek Boora, the FIR alleged.

(With PTI inputs)