Delhi Crime Branch officer among 3 booked in graft case

A statement issued by the ACB on Friday said that the complainant in the case works as a visa consultant. On July 29, while he was in his office on C G Road, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police “raided” the premises. The office and the complainant’s vehicle were searched and two laptops and two printers and a total of 17 passports, wallet, Aadhaar card, ATM card, driving licence, voter ID, PAN card, two cheque books and Rs 20,000 were seized from the office.

After that, the complainant and the owner of the firm were taken to Navrangpura Police Station on the charge that the complainant’s name had been revealed as a co-accused in an FIR registered by the Delhi Crime Branch.

The statement said, “Meanwhile, ASI Shivkumar called his friend Sanjay Patel and the owner of “Om Global Tours” called his friend Chitresh Sutaria. Both Chitresh Sutaria and Sanjay Patel knew each other from earlier. After that, both of them intervened and immediately released the complainant and the owner of ‘Om Global Tours’, and ASI Shivkumar gave notice to the complainant and the firm owner to appear at the Delhi location to record their statements.”

After that, the complainant went to Delhi and met ASI Shivkumar, who allegedly initially demanded a bribe of Rs1 crore from the complainant in exchange for not revealing his name as an accused in the case and for returning the original documents seized by the Crime Branch. The complainant was further allegedly asked to speak to Chitresh Sutaria and Sanjay Patel regarding the bribe.

The ACB statement said that following these discussions, Sutaria and Patel repeatedly kept demanding that the complainant pay the bribe amount, “but the complainant did not have such a large amount of money, so he could not.”

Subsequently, the Delhi Crime Branch revealed the name of the complainant as a co-accused in their case and declared him a fugitive. However, the ACB said, “The Delhi Crime Branch filed a chargesheet in their case, but the documents seized from the complainant were not mentioned in the chargesheet.”

Then, the three accused allegedly demanded Rs 80 lakh from the complainant in lieu of removing his name from the chargesheet, and returning the original documents to him, of which Rs 10 lakh was to be paid in advance and the remaining money was to be paid after the original documents were returned and his name as a fugitive accused was removed from the chargesheet.

However, the complainant, instead, approached the Gujarat ACB and filed a complaint, which led to Inspector S N Barot, Field-3, ACB Ahmedabad, setting a trap in the Paldi area of Ahmedabad, where the transaction was supposed to take place in a car.

“Chitresh Sutaria had a purposeful conversation with the complainant and was caught red-handed while accepting the bribe amount,” said the ACB statement. The Rs10 lakh amount was recovered by the ACB.