Chittaranjan Locomotive bribery case: Board gives sanction to prosecute Railway officer

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, July 29

The Railway Board, Ministry of Railways, Government of India, has given sanction to prosecute Ravi Sekhar Sinha, Principal Chief Material Manager of the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, arrested in the alleged bribery scam.

PK Dogra, senior public prosecutor for the CBI, along with RM Sharma, Inspector of the CBI, ACB, Chandigarh, has submitted the prosecution sanction order received

from the Railway Board against Ravi Shekhar Sinha, along with the application for adding the name of AK Sharma, Under Secretary-III/DARM, Railway Board, Ministry of Railways, New Delhi, in the list of witnesses.

After hearing the arguments, Jagjit Singh, Special Judge, CBI court, Chandigarh, has allowed the application to add the name of the Under Secretary, Railway Board, Ministry of Railways, New Delhi, as prosecution witness, and adjourned the case for September 3.

The CBI has filed the chargesheet against six accused in the alleged bribery case of the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in the first week of April, 2022. Besides Ravi Sekhar Sinha, Principal Chief Material Manager of the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, other accused named in the chargesheet are Rajan Gupta, Sonu Arora, Vinod Kumar, Parveen Vyas and Pawan Kumar Singh.

The chargesheet has been filed for the offences punishable under Section 120-B of the IPC and Sections 7 (A), 8 and 12 of the Prevention of the Corruption Act – 1988.

The CBI had arrested Ravi Sekhar Sinha while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1.80 lakh in February 2022. In the FIR, the CBI alleged that M/s EC Blades and Tools Private Limited, Industrial Area, Phase I, Chandigarh, was awarded the contract for supply of 28 sets of bogey frames on December 14, 2021, to Chittaranjan Locomotive Works of the Indian Railways.

Accused Sonu Arora and Rajan Gupta, being directors of the company, allegedly used the services of Praveen Vyas for contacting the officers of Chittaranjan Locomotive Works for delivery of bribe as demanded by them in lieu of award of contract and enhancing the quantity of material to be supplied. It was also alleged that the public servant enhanced the order quantity in the supply order and demanded the bribe to be delivered to him through the representative.