CBI officers did not arrest Bhushan Steel V-C Neeraj Singhal despite Ranjit Sinha's orders

NEW DELHI: CBI Director Ranjit Sinha has marked an internal inquiry against his own officers for not arresting the Vice-Chairman of Bhushan Steel, Neeraj Singhal, despite Sinha's clear orders to do so on last Saturday.

CBI arrested the Chief Managing Director (CMD) of Syndicate Bank, S.K. Jain on Saturday after he had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from Bhushan Steel to not convert their outstanding loan into a Non Performing Asset (NPA). Eight other persons have been arrested as well. But a CBI team that raided the Delhi bungalow of Singhal the same day did not arrest him despite clear orders of the CBI Director to arrest all persons raided in the case.

"It is a serious matter...I had given clear directions that Singhal should be arrested. He was present at his residence when the CBI team had conducted the raid. The CBI team did search his residence but did not arrest Singhal and returned. Now, Singhal is evading arrest and CBI is searching for him. We have taken serious cognisance of this and I have marked an inquiry into why the arrest was not made despite orders," CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told ET on Tuesday.

No response was available from Bhushan Steel despite repeated attempts by ET since the last two days. Singhal and a key middlemen to whom Bhushan Industries had transferred the bribe amount, Purshottam Lal Totlani, are the two persons evading arrest in the matter with CBI now hot on their pursuit. Nine other persons have been arrested in the case, including Jain, his two brothers-in-law and Prakash Industries Chief Managing Director Ved Prakash Agarwal and another representative Vipul Agarwal.

Sinha said Prakash Industries had earlier paid a bribe to Jain through the same set of middlemen but CBI was not able to lay a trap on that occasion. The CBI says Bhushan Steel had taken a loan of Rs 100 crore from Syndicate Bank while Prakash Industries had taken a loan of Rs 120 crore. Both companies were desperate to avoid their loans being declared NPA's for default in repayments.