Bribery case against ED officers: CBI arrests three ‘middlemen’

ALMOST A year after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked three officers of the Enforcement Directorate, Ahmedabad, including the then joint director J P Singh, for “demanding and accepting huge amount of bribe”, the central agency Tuesday arrested three others who worked as “middlemen” for the accused officers.

According to CBI sources, following a search operation, Sonu Jalan from Mumbai, J K Arora from Delhi and Jayesh Thakkar from Ahmedabad were arrested.

A special court in Ahmedabad remanded Thakkar and Jalan in CBI custody for seven days, Arora will be produced before the court once he is brought here.

CBI sources said that the trio were “informers and front men of J P Singh”. According to a release by CBI, more than Rs 1 crore in cash and several incriminating materials have been recovered from the trio.

“Sonu and Arora acted as Singh’s informants. And based on their tip-offs, he would conduct raids on bookies. What we have learnt is that Singh used to have more information about the raids than the officers who were in the field, simply because of these informants. However, these informants and Singh were involved in foul play, which we are probing,” a CBI officer said.

The third arrested person, Jayesh Thakkar, is a resident of Ahmedabad. Thakkar is also alleged to be a bookie who, sources said, had planted several stories in the local media about a reported threat to J P Singh from an underworld don. Singh later procured a firearm licence from Ahmedabad police.

“He was introduced to Singh by a high-ranking IPS officer. He used to keep a watch on field officers of ED. In fact, Thakkar had filmed accused ED officer Sanjay Kumar having friendly talks with accused bookies and sent this to Singh,” said a source.

On August 22, 2015, the CBI lodged an FIR naming Singh and two unidentified officers, based on a complaint given by Karnal Singh, Director, ED, New Delhi.