Micromax co-founder arrested for bribing civic officials

MCD officials had first demanded Rs 50 lakh as bribe,but Agarwal,an electrical engineer and sports enthusiast,negotiated with the engineers and they agreed on a sum of Rs 30 lakh.

After the arrest,CBI said two beldars of the municipal corporation have been identified as Satish Kumar and Naresh Kumar. The agency also carried out searches at 15 locations,including residential and office premises of the civic officials.

Confirming the arrests,CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said: “We have arrested five persons so far including Agarwal and Tuli. Further investigations are on.”

The CBI said it got a tip-off that Agrawal and Tuli had entered a deal with the engineers to get clearance for construction and regularisation of their banquet hall in the Wazirpur area. It was also agreed that the illegal gratification would allegedly be paid to two junior officials of civic body.

Soon after finding out that the alleged bribe was to be paid at the Timarpur office of Agarwal and Tuli,a CBI team rushed to the site and laid the trap.

During the search operation,the agency caught Tuli and Agarwal handing over Rs 30 lakh to the junior officials,who were allegedly collecting the amount on behalf of a Superintendening Engineer Rajesh Wadhwa,Assistant Engineers A K Singh,R K Sethi and Kapil Dev,all reportedly part of the conspiracy.

CBI said it seized Rs 40 lakh from the house of Dev.

Sleuths said they were examining the documents seized during the raid to ascertain that the owners of Micromax had paid bribes in the past. All five will be produced before a special CBI court on Thursday.

“The company has nothing to do with alleged personal misconduct of two arrested individuals,” a Micromax Informatics spokesperson said.

According to Micromax,it is the third largest mobile brand in India. The company made its foray in 2000 as a software firm and later started manufacturing mobile phones. It recently began manufacturing smartphones. Its website claims,“…Micromax has achieved an envious position in the category,making it the 12th largest mobile brand in the world,according to Strategy Analytics’ Global Handset vendor market share report.” with PTI