CBI searches at IOCL office, voluminous documents seized
31 Mar 2022 06:52:46
Staff Reporter
After arresting three top officials of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) on graft charges last Friday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Wednesday, conducted searches at IOCL’s regional office at Nagpur and recovered voluminous documents that reveal ongoing corrupt practices in the company.
About six letters of intent, ownership transfer requests, around 300 pending bills and a large number of letters including complaints against IOCL were found pending in the cabin of Rodge, the CBI official said.
The letter of intent is issued by IOCL’s regional office to start a petrol pump after getting approval from the headquarters. However, six letters of intent were found pending for more than one-and-a-half-months. Similarly, the owners transfer requests forms were also found
pending for months. It may be mentioned here that an IOCL official from Gondia was trapped by CBI for demanding Rs one lakh bribe to permit transfer of ownership. The CBI officials are suspecting that the permissions might be put on hold by the official to pocket some easy bucks.
The CBI also found 300 pending bills of small works executed by contractors on the requests of IOCL. These bills are collectively worth Rs three crore. However, the bills were not passed by Rodge, the CBI official said.
The CBI will interrogate Rodge to understand the reason for putting the bills and the papers for several months. Some property documents were also seized by the investigators, said the official.
Rodge and Manish Nandle, Chief Manager (Retail Sales), IOCL were booked by CBI on Friday while accepting graft charges on Friday for demanding a bribe of Rs one lakh from a petrol pump owner to transfer ownership of the pump.
As the three officials of IOCL were arrested in a single day on graft charges, the CBI officials are suspecting that there must be a chain of officials in IOCL indulged in corrupt practices. Some more officials of IOCL will be called for questioning by the investigators this week, sources claimed.
Under guidance of SP Salim Khan, DySP Sandip Chougule, the CBI team including Police Inspectors Neeraj Gupta , Kalyani Humne and staff including Vijay Uke, Santosh and others conducted the searches.
Three bank
lockers of Rodge
The CBI found three bank lockers in the name of Rodge of which two are located in Mumbai. The CBI officials on Wednesday failed to open the locker in Nagpur-based bank due to glitches in key. The investigators are expecting to seize property related documents from the lockers.