CBI court sends NHAI manager to jail for 4 years in DA case

Jodhpur, July 15 A Special CBI Court in Jodhpur sentenced a manager of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to four years of imprisonment with a fine of Rs 41.65 lakh for possessing illegal assets, an official said on Tuesday.

Surender Kumar Soni, the then Manager (Technical), NHAI, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, was convicted for possessing assets disproportionate (DA) to his known sources of income during his tenure.

The court, in its decision on July 14, found that the accused had 116 per cent more assets than his known sources of income.

The CBI had registered the case against Soni on July 30, 2013.

After the completion of the investigation, a chargesheet was filed by the CBI on December 18, 2014, against the accused before the Special CBI Judge.

In a separate case, CBI booked two NHAI engineers, a resolution board member of the Authority and five others, including builders and a middleman, over bribes of more than Rs 10 lakh linked to doctoring of the quality audit report of a road project in Jharkhand.

The CBI booked two NHAI Deputy Managers and a retired engineer empanelled as a Dispute Resolution Board (DRB) Member by the Authority for bribes in lieu of furnishing a favourable Quality Audit Report (QAR) to a group of contractors working on the Rs 818 crore project for widening National Highway-75 in Jharkhand.

A Quality Audit Team assessed the project executed by a number of contractors and sub-contractors, with Dineshchandra R. Agrawal Infracon being in the lead, between June 26 and June 30, the FIR said.

The FIR accused the NHAI representatives of indulging in the corrupt practice of accepting and/or conspiring to take illegal gratification, in lieu of furnishing favourable QAR for inspection of the Package-III project in Ranchi, Jharkhand, from Manish Mishra, Chief Operating Officer, M/s Bharat Vanijya Eastern Private Limited (BVEPL).

According to source information received by the federal agency, Rakesh Bhasin, empanelled as Dispute Resolution Board (DRB) Member, NHAI, and retired Chief Engineer, Military Engineering Service, was supposed to be paid a bribe of Rs 4 lakh at his residence in Jaipur while NHAI’s Deputy Manager Swatantra Gaurav’s Gurugram-based friend Dheeraj collected Rs 5 lakh on his behalf.

A bribe of Rs 1 lakh was to be delivered to another NHAI Deputy Manager, Vishwajeet Singh, on the instruction of Manish Mishra, said the FIR.

The CBI FIR registered on July 12 said, “The above acts of obtaining and accepting undue advantage by the said public servants, private persons and unknown officials of NHAI are disclosing offences punishable under Sections 7, 7A, 8, 9, 10 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) and 61(2) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023. Hence, a regular case is registered…”

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