The Assistant Director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and six other officials were arrested on Monday by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly taking bribes amounting to Rs 5 crore to favour businessman Amandeep Singh Dhall, an accused in the Delhi excise policy case.
Pawan Khatri, who worked as an Assistant Director in the ED, was one of the two officials against whom the probe agency had filed a complaint over the bribery charges. The other accused named in the FIR are Nitesh Kohar, Upper Division Clerk; Deepak Sangwan, an employee of Air India; Amandeep Singh Dhall; Birender Pal Singh; Praveen Kumar Vats, Chartered Accountant; Vikramaditya, CEO of Claridges Hotels and Resorts, ANI reported.
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During the course of the investigation of the Delhi liquor scam, it was learnt that a group of certain persons were involved in the activity of taking money in the name of senior ED officials.
According to the complaint by the ED, it was also learnt that Amandeep Singh Dhall and Birender Pal Singh had given Rs 5 crore to Praveen Vats between December 2022 and January 2023 to arrange for help in the ongoing investigation in the Delhi excise policy case.
In his statement to the ED, Praveen Vats said Deepak Sangwan had assured him to help arrange for the protection from arrest for Amandeep Dhall in lieu of some amount. Sangwan introduced Vats to Pawan Khatri, the ED official, in December 2022.
On the basis of Deepak Sangwan’s assurance, Praveen Vats took Rs 3 crore from Amandeep Dhall in six tranches of Rs 50 lakh each from December 2022 to January 2023. Deepak Sangwan later told Vats that Amandeep Singh Dhall might be taken out of the accused list in the case for an additional amount of Rs 2 crore.
Praveen Vats conveyed the same to Amandeep Dhall and after the businessman agreed to the proposal, he gave Rs 2 crore to Vats in four tranches of Rs 50 lakh each.
Praveen Vats also told the ED that out of the amount received from Amandeep Singh Dhall‘s father, he had given Rs 50 lakh to Deepak Sangwan and Pawan Khatri as advance payment. The payment was made in cash and the handover was made around the middle of December 2022 in a parking space behind ITC Hotel, Vasant Vihar.
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However, despite the assurances made by Sangwan, Amandeep Dhall was arrested by the ED on March 1, 2023. After the arrest, Praveen Vats met Deepak Sangwan, who said the instructions for the arrest came from higher authorities and he did not have influence over them.
Deepak Sangwan in his statement to the ED, told the officials that he met Praveen in June regarding the return of the money taken from Dhall’s family. In a few such meetings, the two accused ED officials, Pawan Khatri and Nitesh Kohar, were also present.
The senior officer of the ED, who is supervising the investigation into the excise policy scam, learnt about the bribes being taken by certain ED officials.
ED officers then started a probe and later conducted searches at the residence of the accused in the case, including the suspected officials of the probe agency. The search team recovered Rs 2.19 crore in cash and diamond jewellery worth Rs 1.94 crore from Praveen Vats’s house. He also had Rs 2.62 crore in his bank account.
The ED also seized two luxury cars from Praveen Vats’s house. The probe agency also seized other incriminating evidence from the house of the other accused in the case, including that of the ED officials.
The CBI also conducted searches at the premises linked to the accused after filing the FIR at the ED’s behest.
(With inputs from ANI)