CBI Registers Case Against GAIL Director For Taking Bribe

CBI registers case against the GAIL director for taking bribes, raids at many places.

The CBI has arrested ES Ranganathan, Director of Gas Authority of India Limited, under its purview for allegedly favoring private companies through arbitrary orders by taking bribes of lakhs of rupees.

The investigating agency has arrested five people registered in the case. CBI gave this information on Saturday.

After the registration of the case on Friday, the CBI raided around eight places in Delhi-NCR, including Ranganathan’s office at Bhikaji Cama Place in Delhi and his residence in Sector 62, Noida.

CBI registers case against the GAIL director: The CBI has so far recovered Rs 1.3 crore in cash from Ranganathan’s hideouts.

CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said that apart from Ranganathan, the probe agency has also arrested middlemen Pawan Gaur and Rajesh Kumar.

CBI has arrested alleged bribe taker N. Ramakrishnan Nair, businessman Saurabh Gupta and his Panchkula-based company United Polymer Industries, and Aditya Bansal and Karnal.

A case has also been registered against his company-based Bansal Agency.

The CBI has laid a trap and arrested a director (Kumar) of a private company based in Delhi and a broker for allegedly dealing with bribe money, the spokesperson said.

The money allegedly being taken for Ranganathan was in the form of Rs 10 lakh in cash. The spokesman said that five people have been arrested so far but Ranganathan has not been taken into custody yet.

According to sources, searches are still going on at various premises. Those arrested include Gaur, Kumar, Nair, Gupta, and Bansal.

Searches were conducted in the premises of these accused located in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Panchkula, Karnal, in which 84 lakh rupees have been recovered so far.

Of these, Rs 75 lakh alone has been received from the broker’s house in Gurugram.

According to the FIR registered by the CBI, Gaur and Kumar worked as touts of Ranganathan and allegedly extorted bribe money from private companies.

These three had a lot of filth among themselves and they were involved in corrupt activities.

Sources told the CBI that on the instructions of Kumar, Gaur had asked Ranganathan to allow certain exemptions to the buyers of petrochemical products. In return, a bribe was offered.

According to the FIR, Kumar and Gaur had also met Ranganathan at his Noida residence on December 11 last year to discuss the proposal.

CBI registers case against the GAIL director: Two days later, Gaur informed Kumar that a proposal for relaxation in GAIL was under consideration.

After the final decision on issuance of exemption order in GAIL was taken, Kumar approached other potential beneficiaries of the exemption to make arrangements for the bribe.

Gaur, Kumar, and Ranganathan met again on December 14 at a five-star hotel in Delhi to discuss it.

Sources further said that on December 17, Rajesh collected bribe money from beneficiary private parties to give it to Ranganathan. Handed over to Gaur.

The source further said that on the instructions of Ranganathan, Nair recovered an amount of Rs 40 lakh from Gaur’s residence on December 18.

Gaur then approached Ranganathan on 20 December to issue a waiver order. To this Ranganathan told him that he would sign the order after returning from Mumbai.

The FIR alleged that Kumar allegedly took along two more potential beneficiaries, Gupta and Bansal, in the case and persuaded them to pay bribes in lieu of arbitrary orders.

Kumar told Gupta on January 13 that he would get the waiver order issued from GAIL but instead, he would have to pay a bribe of Rs 12 lakh allegedly to Ranganathan.

Gaur also asked Gupta to send the money at the earliest. Thereafter, he allegedly paid Rs 3 lakh to Kumar, while the remaining amount was to be sent through hawala.

Ranganathan is said to have conducted an investigation in the premises of some authorized stockists of GAIL in November 2021 at the request of Pawan Gaur and Rajesh Kumar.

Before that surprise, however, ES Ranganathan had alerted some of his favorite stockists.

The spokesperson said that in this case, the CBI has registered a case against the accused under sections of criminal conspiracy of IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.