Former Enceforment Directorate officer sentenced to 3-year imprisonment for accepting Rs 5 lakh bribe | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: A special court for Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases in Bengaluru Friday found a former ED officer guilty of accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh in a city pub from a Mumbai-based businessman in 2021. The court sentenced him to three years’ simple imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5.5 lakh.The convict, Lalit Bazad, was on deputation from central goods and services tax and central excise department, Chennai. Senior public prosecutor Shivananda Perla told TOI the anti-corruption bureau of CBI filed the chargesheet against Bazad in Dec 2021. Earlier in June 2021, the complaint was filed by Mikhil Innani, a Mumbai-based businessman. The investigating agency alleged that in Feb 2021, while the accused was working as an enforcement officer in Bengaluru, had summoned Innani to the ED office in connection with an alleged Chinese loan scam. When the complainant attended the ED office, the accused allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 5 lakh to close the case. He also informed Innani that a case was registered against the company he runs in Mumbai by cyber crime police, Hyderabad. Bazad further threatened that the company accounts would be frozen. He put the complainant in fear of illegal harm to his business and reputation, entangling it in endless legal proceedings and dishonestly, inducing the delivery of money from him, Perla quoted from the chargesheet.When Bazad forced him to pay the money, on Sept 2, 2021, Harish Innani, the complainant’s cousin, arranged the money and delivered it to Bazad in a pub in JP Nagar. The entire movement of the accused was recorded in the CCTV footage of the pub, and CBI produced the same before the court. The court held that the accused misused his official position as an enforcement officer and accepted the bribe by threatening the complainant, Perla said.
