CBI arrests son of industrialist Mahimananda Mishra, builder in Paradip Port Trust bribery case

New Delhi [India], August 6 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday arrested Charchit Mishra, son of leading Odisha industrialist Mahimananda Mishra and MD of Stevedores Limited.
The CBI also nabbed builder Shishir Das in an alleged bribery case involving officials of Paradip Port Trust.
On Friday, CBI arrested a Chief Mechanical Engineer of Paradip Port Trust in Odisha and three private persons including a conduit, middleman etc. in the same case.
"The four persons who were arrested on Friday have been sent to five days of police custody by the court. The two who were arrested today will be produced before the court," said a senior CBI official.
He added that Charchit Mishra was named in the accused list of FIR registered by CBI but Shishir was arrested during an investigation after they recovered Rs 8.30 lakh out of Rs 10 lakh bribe amount kept at his house.
A case was registered against Chief Mechanical Engineer, Paradip Port Trust (Odisha), and others including private persons, private companies and unknown others.
It was alleged that the Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME), Paradip Port Trust (Odisha) was in the habit of demanding and accepting bribes through his close conduit for extending undue benefits to various private stakeholders engaged in port service and activities at Paradip Port. The said conduit of CME was in close contact with the Manager Port Operations (also allegedly acting as a middleman with other Cargo companies) of a private group of companies and other persons.
It was further alleged that while unloading cargo, a private company based at Cuttack (Odisha), damaged the conveyor belt operational in Paradip Port. The cost of repairing/replacement of the conveyor belt was very high. The said CME in conspiracy with conduit, middleman and Director of said the private company got it repaired at the cost of Port Trust causing a huge monetary advantage to said private company. In turn, the conduit allegedly demanded Rs. 60 lakh as a bribe for the said favour, allegedly on behalf of CME.
Accordingly, he collected the bribe amount of Rs. 25 lakh from Cuttack and kept Rs. 10 lakh separately for themselves. It was also alleged that the conduit handed over Rs. 10 lakh to a real estate developer in Bhubaneshwar, with whom the Chief Mechanical Engineer had allegedly booked a property.
CBI intercepted the said conduit in Paradip and recovered Rs. 5 lakh of the alleged bribe money from him. Later, Rs. 18.30 lakh also as part of the alleged bribe was recovered. During further searches, Rs. 20.25 lakh (approx.), jewellery, documents related to investment and other incriminating documents were recovered from the residence of the Chief Mechanical Engineer.
Searches were also conducted at 15 locations including in Paradip, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Bhubaneshwar at the premises of the accused. Rs. 41 lakh (approx.) was recovered from the premises of the Director of said private company.