Graft case closed against eight CR officials after CBI files closure report

“I perused the final report, documents collected during the investigation. I am satisfied that there is no evidence against the accused to prosecute them for the alleged offences. Hence, the closure report is accepted,” special judge S M Menjoge said. The accused were booked under sections including criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust by public servants of the Indian Penal Code and other sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

An FIR was registered in February 2022 against Ved Prakash, a senior divisional electrical engineer, Vijay Kumar, assistant divisional electrical engineer, Suresh Kapare, senior material manager, Sureshchandra Baria, senior section engineer, D D Sorte, senior section engineer, H S Gomes, retired chief office superintendent, Anjali Gupta, chief office superintendent and Arun Shriram, divisional electrical engineer.

The CBI FIR claimed the officials were posted at Vidyavihar depot and Kurla carshed of the Central Railway. The allegation was that they conspired to purchase replaceable parts at a higher cost, for illegal monetary benefit of private firms. The CBI had said that there was a tender process in place to procure various parts for maintenance of local train rakes. The allegations were that the description of these parts were kept in such a manner that only specific suppliers could be allotted the tender at a higher price, even though the parts were locally available. The CBI claimed that the conspiracy took place between 2017 and 2020 with parts worth crores of rupees purchased.