NALCO CMD, wife sent to six-day police custody

A.K. Srivastava, chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) of the National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO), and his wife were sent to six-day police custody by a CBI special court Saturday, a day after they were arrested by the investigation agency for allegedly accepting bribe.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Srivastava, his wife Chandni Srivastava, along with two accomplices, Bhushan Lal Bajaj and Anita Bajaj, for accepting bribe Friday.

CBI Special Judge O.P. Saini sent all four to police custody till March 3.

Before entering the court, Chandni said: “The locker which the CBI has seized is not in my husband’s name, how can they arrest my husband and relate him to this?”

The CBI arrested Srivastava when his wife was accepting an illegal gratification of three gold bricks, each weighing one kg, of 24-carat gold. His wife was accepting the bribe from the wife of a middleman who was brokering a deal between the CMD and a Madhya Pradesh-based private company, the CBI said in statement Friday night.

At the time of the CBI raid, Srivastava’s wife, accompanied by the wife of the middleman, had just deposited the three gold bricks in a bank locker of the Bank of Maharashtra in the national capital.

The bank locker was in the name of the wife of the middleman. It was being operated by Srivastava’s wife “as benami”.

A search of the locker revealed seven more gold bricks of 1 kg each, golden ornaments weighing 188 grams and Indian currency of Rs.9.5 lakh. A search of Srivastava’s wife led to the recovery of Rs.5 lakh from her handbag and the key to another locker in the name of the wife of the middleman.

A search of the second locker led to recovery of Rs.15 lakh in cash.

The total recoveries amount to 10.188 kg gold and Rs.29.5 lakh in cash. The total value of the seizures works out to approximately Rs.2.43 crore at current prices of gold, the statement said.