Mumbai: The CBI team probing corruption in SEEPZ SEZ suffered further embarrassment on Thursday when the special court released the seventh arrested accused in the case, Assistant Development Commissioner Rekha Nair, as well.

On Wednesday the court had ordered the release of six accused in the case after their arrest was held illegal. On Thursday the court said that the agency ought to have sent a notice to Nair and obtained sanction for arrest before taking her into custody. The CBI told the court that Nair was arrested on Wednesday evening on corruption charges.

CBI Seeks Custody Of Assistant Development Commissioner Rekha Nair

The agency sought her custody claiming that during the investigation, Joint Development Commissioner CPS Chauhan had admitted to have accepted bribe of Rs 15 lakh from middleman Manoj Joglekar. It is alleged that out of the said amount, Chauhan gave Rs 8 lakh to his staff, including Rs2 lakh to Nair. Officials further claimed that when Nair’s house was searched, they found several incriminating documents and Rs 47 lakh in unaccounted cash. The defence lawyers for Rekha, Rahul Agarwal, assisted by Jasmin Purani and Sajid Sayed; had alleged that Nair was not provided grounds of arrests at the time she was actually arrested. He claimed that Nair was made to sign on the documents stating grounds of arrest only on Thursday, before she was brought before the court. It is also against the law to arrest a woman after sunset, the defence argued.

Observation Made By The Court

The court considered the defence arguments and held that Nair’s arrest was not as per the law. Meanwhile, the CBI has learned that one of the accused middlemen, Joglekar, collected a bribe of Rs 15 lakh as recently as last week. An amount of Rs 60 lakh collected by Joglekar was allegedly kept in his office at SEEPZ’s Andheri campus. The money was kept in bags containing envelopes. The bribe amount, name of bribe givers and officers for whom the bribe was meant were written on those envelopes.

“During the probe it was also learnt that Joglekar also collected bribe of Rs 15 lakh from one private person on December 12, which he allegedly handed over to accused JDC. The JDC kept Rs 7 lakh for himself and distributed the rest amongst officers at SEEPZ,” an official said.

CBI Registers Case Against 9 Accused

The CBI registered a case on Tuesday against nine accused – seven public servants and two middlemen, including Joglekar, on allegations that the accused IRS officer CPS Chauhan and other officers were indulging in collusive corruption. It was alleged that the officials posted at SEEPZSEZ Mumbai were collecting undue advantage through middlemen from the parties functioning from SEEPZ in the matters of allotment of space, disposal of imported goods, sale of duty free imported goods in market without paying duty, favouring civil contractors, in lieu of monetary consideration.