Chennai: A special court for CBI cases here has refused to discharge an officer of Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IAAS) and his assistant from a corruption case registered against them by CBI.
According to prosecution, in April 2014, the CBI arrested A. Paramasivan, a 2005-batch IAAS officer, posted as Director in Directorate-General of Audit, Central Expenditure, New Delhi, his brother-in-law, Sivaram Thilagar, a Medical Officer at Primary Health Centre, Baluchetty Chattiram, Kancheepuram and Tushar Ranjan Samal, Assistant Audit Officer (AAO) in the DG’s office on corruption charges.
On March 24, 2014, the Principal of MIOT School of Nursing received a letter from Indian Nursing Council, New Delhi, seeking certain information and records for audit in New Delhi. R. Hariharan, liaison officer for MIOT Hospital here, visited the council on April 9, .2014 and met Thushyendran, Audit Inspector, who verified the records and raised various queries alleging deficiencies in the records.
After addressing the queries, Hariharan met Paramasivan the same day at his office in New Delhi. Paramasivan allegedly demanded Rs 35 lakh as bribe to sort out the deficiencies, failing which he would impose penalty on MIOT
College.
Based on Hariharan’s complaint, CBI personnel laid a trap and detained Sivaram Thilagar, when he allegedly accepted a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from a conduit on behalf of MIOT hospital in April 2014. He collected the bribe based on instruction from Paramasivan to regularise MIOT College of Nursing in Chennai.
During interrogation, Sivaram revealed he accepted the sum at the instance of Paramasivan. Subsequently, searches were conducted on the premises of the accused in Delhi, Noida, Kancheepuram, Melamaniachi, Tirunelveli and Chennai and CBI seized '95 lakh in cash and 12 immovable property documents from the residence of IAAS officer and nine immovable property documents from the residence of Sivaram. Certain incriminating documents were also seized, the prosecution said. CBI filed a chargesheet against him. Paramasivan filed a petition seeking discharge from the case. The CBI opposed the plea.
Dismissing the petition, principal special judge for CBI cases, A.Kantha Kumar, said several documents substantiate clinching evidence against the petitioner and the co accused. He also dismissed the discharge petition filed by Tushar Ranjan Samal.
