india

Updated: Jul 13, 2019 13:10 IST

The Central Bureau of Investigation carried out searches in as many as 14 locations in Guwahati on Thursday after it booked six employees of the Northeast Frontier Railway in connection with an over Rs 100 crore fraudulent advertisement scam, officials said on Friday.

“We carried out searches in 14 places including official and residential premises of some accused and others on Thursday. Important documents pertaining to the case and electronic evidence has been recovered,” said a CBI official on condition of anonymity.

The FIR registered by the ACB, Guwahati on July 2 names six employees including a senior public relations officer (construction) of the NFR and notes that between 2014 and 2018, “they entered into criminal conspiracy among themselves and other unknown persons to cheat NF Railways with dishonest intention and thereby prepared , submitted, accepted, passed and disbursed huge amount of money against fake bills relating to advertisement of approved Notice Inviting Tenders (NITs) in various newspapers…”

The FIR was registered under sections 120 B, 409, 420, 466, 468, 471 and Sections 13(2) read with Section 13(1) (c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The FIR alleges that the accused, one of whom have since retired, have “falsely created records, as they had given NITs advertisements in the newspapers which in fact are not in circulation at all. They have fraudulently passed more than one bill for same advertisement…”

The FIR notes the alleged fraud led to a loss of more than Rs 100 crore to the NFR. The FIR mentions names of newspapers like Aami Asomor Janagan, Kolkata Tender and Auction News, Sadhbhawna ka Prateek among others. It also claims that double payments were made to them even as they were either not in circulation or in circulation in a limited area.

The FIR alleges NFR made an expenditure of Rs 157.54 crore against “5482 bills towards fraudulent advertisements” between 2014 and 2018.

A spokesperson of the NFR (Construction) refused to comment.