Close on the heels of the arrest of a Regional Passport Officer (RPO) by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) few days ago at Jalandhar for allegedly seeking bribe for issuance of passports, the central agency has now registered another case in which officials of Regional Passport Office Ghaziabad have been named as accused for demanding bribe for resolving passport related issues of applicants.
According to the information shared by CBI, case has been registered against five accused including Passport Assistants, Senior Passport Assistant at Regional Passport Office, CGO-I, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad and a private person on allegations that the accused entered a conspiracy and indulged in mal-practices by way of obtaining undue pecuniary advantage/ bribe in lieu of resolving the issues of passport applicants, pending at RPO Ghaziabad.
CBI also said that it was also alleged that the accused private person used to contact the concerned dealing hands all officials working at Regional Passport Office, Ghaziabad, for sending Police Verification Report, Scanning of documents, Printing of Passport, Dispatch of Passport, etc. of the passport applicants whose Passport applications were pending at Regional Passport Office Ghaziabad. In lieu of that, he allegedly paid illegal gratification to the accused passport officials using different payment gateways.
It was further alleged that during June 14th 2022 to July 2nd 2023, accused private person obtained undue pecuniary advantage, bribe to the tune of Rs.1,57,600 in lieu of resolving the issues of passport applicants. The alleged amount, so obtained, was transferred by him through UPI into Bank Wallets, Bank accounts of accused passport officials , their family members, friends, known persons, through various transactions.
Searches are being conducted by CBI at the premises of the accused persons at Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad (UP).