Excise commissioner Anup Kumar Srivastava has been arrested in a bribery case. The central bureau of investigation had registered a case against the commissioner, a superintendent of central excise, and a few other persons in New Delhi for demanding a bribe of Rs 60 lakh from an importer of mobile phones.

It was alleged that a managed farce search of the importer’s office was conducted by the central excise team headed by the superintendent on the instructions of Srivastava. No records were created before, during or after the searches. Initially, a bribe of Rs 2 crore was allegedly demanded, which was finally settled for Rs 60 lakh.

The middleman collected Rs 20 lakh as well as a bearer cheque of Rs 20 lakh from the importer for not taking any action against him. Out of this, the middleman delivered a cash of about Rs 3 lakh to the superintendent in his office on Monday, which was recovered during CBI raid on the same day.  A large number of incriminating documents recovered during searches on the premises of the accused public servants as well as private persons are being scrutinised. The CBI has arrested the superintendent of central excise, Lallan Jha, and the middleman, Hemant Gandhi, who were sent to a four-day CBI custody by a special judge on Tuesday.