CBI arrests Haryana-based EPFO’s Enforcement officer, private person in bribery case

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 23

The Central Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday that it had arrested an Enforcement Officer of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) posted at Jagadhari in Haryana and a private person in an alleged bribery case of Rs 1 lakh.

Officials in the agency said that the CBI, the central agency that investigates corruption cases in the country, had laid a trap and caught the private person they identified as Ashok Gupta accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from the complainant at the behest of EPFO’s Enforcement Officer Anil Kumar.

They said the Enforcement Officer was caught later after they conducted searches at the premises of suspects, both of whom will be produced before the appropriate court on Wednesday.

In a statement it issued later in the evening, the CBI said it had booked the suspects on the basis of a complaint that said that the EPFO at Jagadhari had launched an inquiry under the Civil Procedure Code against the complainant even though his firm had deposited all dues for employees’ provident fund period between November 2018 and July 2019.

 “It was also alleged that during the said enquiry, the Enforcement Office, EPFO informed the complainant to contact a private person for getting clearance in the said enquiry. Accordingly, the complainant met the said private person who allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs. 1 lakh on behalf of the Enforcement Officer in lieu of settling the enquiry,” the statement read.