NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a case against Unitech Limited founder Ramesh Chandra , his son Ajay Chandra, another family member – Upma Chandra and senior executives of the real estate firm for allegedly bribing a Delhi Police SHO for influencing probes or final settlement in company’s favour in several cases registered at Saket police station.

The agency arrested the SHO of Saket police station – Neeraj Kumar Tyagi alongwith a lawyer Neeraj Walia, while latter was handing over Rs 2 lakh bribe to the police officer on Tuesday, said CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal.

Earlier, in April 2017, Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) had arrested Ajay Chandra and his brother Sanjay Chandra, both managing directors of the company, for allegedly cheating several homebuyers, who invested in their Greater Noida project, of Rs 35 crore.

Both the brothers are currently in jail.

Sanjay Chandra has already faced CBI investigation in 2G spectrum scam, for which he remained in jail for several months at that time.

In the latest case, CBI got information through its sources that Unitech’s promoters and company executives were in touch with some Delhi police officers for the settlement of cases registered against the company on the directions of the Saket court.

Several homebuyers had approached the court under section 156 (3) of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), whereby a magistrate orders cops to investigate a matter, as they had invested money Unitech projects, but their money was not being returned by the company and projects were incomplete.

CBI officials said that 47 cases were referred for investigation to Saket police station and Neeraj Kumar Tyagi, who joined Delhi Police in 1994, was overall incharge of all the probes being a SHO.

As it found out that SHO and another Delhi police officer – Sanjay Sharma – Inspector (anti-terrorism officer ATO) at Hauz Khas police station, were in touch with Unitech representatives and had promised the settlement of cases in lieu of money, CBI registered a case and started tracking their movements.

In its FIR, other than Ramesh Chandra, Ajay Chandra and Upma Chandra, CBI named advocate Walia, Tyagi, Sharma and two employees of Unitech – Seema Manga and Pradeep Kumar.

Tyagi and Walia were arrested on Tuesday afternoon while bribe money was being delivered.

Delhi Police said that both Tyagi and Sharma, an officer of 1995 batch, have been dismissed from service.

Sources said that Tyagi, a native of Haryana, has served as SHO in North Delhi and in Special Branch of Delhi police before taking over the charge of SHO Saket last year.

CBI will interrogate Chandra family members and company executives to know more about the corruption scandal.

Sources said that agreed bribe amount was much higher and Rs 2 lakh was just an installment, which was being paid to SHO regularly.

“There could be more officers involved in the chain. We will investigate that,” said a CBI officer.

Unitech could not be reached for comments.

