New Delhi, August 18
CBI today arrested Censor Board CEO Rakesh Kumar for allegedly demanding Rs 70,000 as bribe for clearing a regional movie.

According to CBI sources, the arrest was made late in the evening in Mumbai as the Central Board of Film Certification CEO came under the agency scanner after two middlemen allegedly receiving bribe on his behalf were arrested on Thursday.

Although the present case deals only with a Chhattisgarh movie, the agency has information that some top producers of Bollywood allegedly paid bribe to get their films cleared in time, said sources.

They said Kumar was being grilled by the interrogation team where he might reveal some more names who had allegedly paid bribe to get censor certificates on time.

The agency had searched his house on Thursday and arrested agent Shripati Mishra and advisory panel member of the Censor Board Sarvesh Jaiswal.

They were caught while taking the alleged bribe on Kumar's behalf, the sources said. They said an authorised agent for censor certification had approached the CBI alleging that Mishra had been demanding Rs 70,000 on behalf of Kumar for issuing the censor certificate for regional language film from Chhattisgarh "Mor Dauki Ke Bihav".

An Indian Railways Personnel Officer, Kumar joined as CEO of CBFC in January.

The sources said producers of the film had wanted an urgent certificate as the date of the release of the movie was on August 15. — PTI