Three people were arrested after a drone manufacturing firm filed an FIR with the CBI alleging that a senior auditor posted with the office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (PCDA), Ministry of Defence sought Rs 10 lakh to release their payment of Rs 55.96 crore. The payment was for a project in which they had supplied UAVs to the Indian Army in 2023. The three arrested include a senior auditor and the owner of a defence supplier firm. The FIR was registered on February 7 after the agency received a complaint from Varun Narang, senior vice-president of the finance department at the company Raphe mPhibr. Narang filed the FIR after obtaining authorisation from Vikash Mishra, chairman and director of the firm. “A written complaint…was received…against Saurabh, an employee of Principal Controller of Defence Accounts in MOD and one Akash,” it states. A spokesperson for the Central Bureau of Investigation said, “The CBI registered a case against two accused – senior auditor Deep Narayan Yadav and defence supplier Akash Kapoor over allegations that they demanded Rs 10 lakh from the complainant for his already cleared bills and threatened to obstruct the payment of further bills.” “The CBI laid a trap and caught an employee of the accused defence supplier red-handed while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 8 lakh from the complainant as the first instalment. Later, Kapoor, who is the owner of Akash Polytechnic Pvt Ltd, was also apprehended,” the spokesperson said, adding that Yadav was apprehended later. In his complaint, Narang said that Raphe mPhibr supplied logistics UAV to the Army on September 29, 2023. “We had submitted an invoice worth Rs 55.96 crore against invoices on September 29, and November 23 last year. The payment against the same has been credited to our account, however, Yadav was demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to clear all the invoices… He also threatened that on non-payment of bribe, he will not get subsequent bills of my company cleared from the PCDA office,” he stated. Narang soon approached the CBI. “During enquiry, Narang had a brief conversation with Yadav by keeping his mobile phone on speaker mode and it was recorded in the memory card… During the conversation, Yadav confirmed the demand of Rs 10 lakh from him for clearing his bills and agreed to accept Rs 8 lakh, but directed to arrange the remaining 2 lakh later, the CBI inquiry report stated. “Narang was also informed that if he wants to clear more bills, then the complainant would have to pay separately for those bills,” the report said.
