Arrested PESO officials to face charges of Disproportionate Assets

 

 

 

 

 

After arresting two officials of the Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is gearing up to register Disproportionate Assets (DA) cases against them. Ashok Kumar Dalela and Vivek Kumar, both Deputy Chief Controllers of Explosives at PESO, were arrested by the CBI on Thursday on bribery charges. Cash of Rs 90 lakh was recovered from the house of Kumar while Rs 2.50 lakh cash was recovered from Dalela’s house.

 

According to CBI officials, evidences to register a case of DA against Vivek Kumar are enough as unaccounted money of Rs 90 lakh cash was recovered from his rented residence. To book Dalela under DA charges, the CBI is connecting dots of recovered Rs 1.25 crore cash from the house of Priyadarshan Dinkar Deshpande, a private person, as he accepted the bribe of Rs 10 lakh on behalf of these PESO officials from Devi Singh Kachhawaha, the Director of M/s Super Shivshakti Chemical Pvt Ltd in Rajasthan.

 

As a part of investigation, the CBI had also conducted a raid at PESO Chief Controller of Explosives P Kumar’s rented house in Hajaripahad area and recovered Rs 5.86 lakh cash, along with three property documents. Three properties of P Kumar, a Joint-Secretary rank official, have been identified by the CBI which include a flat at Panvel, near Mumbai; another flat at Vaishali in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh and one more flat at Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. The three properties have been sealed and CBI officials are likely to conduct searches at these properties this week.