CBI raids passport offices in Mumbai; 32 officials booked for bribery

CBI on Saturday said it has registered 12 cases against 14 officials including passport assistants or senior passport assistants posted at Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) of Lower Parel and Malad, and 18 passport facilitation agents or touts.

As per the FIRs, the accused passport officials posted at PSK, Lower Parel, Mumbai and PSK Malad were indulging in collusive corruption with agents or touts.

The entire racket was exposed after CBI received reliable information indicating that some granting officers and verifying senior officers posted at Passport Seva Kendra, Lower Parel are indulging in collusive corruption.

The accused officers were in regular contact with passport facilitation agents and conspired with them to obtain undue advantage in lieu of issuance of passport based on fake/forged documents or changing the personal particular of applicants in their passport.

Sources also informed the CBI that some officers were receiving the bribe directly in their own bank accounts or in the bank accounts of their family members from the passport facilitation agents.

CBI also learned that some officers of PSK were also in touch with passport facilitation agents, who were involved in making fake passports by compromising national security of the country.

Acting on this reliable information, the CBI on June 26 conducted Joint Surprise Checks at PSK, Lower Parel and PSK, Malad along with the Vigilance Officers of the Passport Seva Programme (PSP) Division and officers of RPO Mumbai.

During the Joint Surprise Check, the office desks and mobile phones of the suspect officers were analyzed jointly by CBI team and Vigilance Officers of PSP, Division, MEA.

“The analysis of documents, social media (WhatsApp) chats and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ID activities of suspected public servants revealed various suspicious transactions by some officials of PSKs indicating demand and acceptance of undue advantage through the passport facilitation agents for issuance of passports as well as to get passports issued based on inadequate/fake/forged documents,” the CBI said in a statement.

All the accused have been booked under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and sections 7, 7-A, 8, 11 and 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 (as amended in 2018).
The agency will soon make arrests in the case, sources said.