CBI harassing me, says senior IAS officer

The Odisha-cadre IAS officer said: ‘The male officials searched my house while my wife was the only woman in the house’

Bhubaneswar: Senior IAS officer Bishnupada Sethi had a heated exchange with a CBI team that searched his official residence on Tuesday to investigate a Rs 10-lakh bribery case.

“The CBI officials carried out a search at my residence, even though there is no FIR against me. They are unnecessarily harassing me,” Sethi told reporters in the presence of the agency’s officials.

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The senior IAS officer said, “They (CBI) came to search my house without prior notice and their eight-member team does not include a woman officer. The male officials searched my house while my wife was the only woman in the house.” “We are being falsely implicated and harassed,” Sethi’s wife told reporters.

The CBI had earlier summoned Sethi in connection with the bribery case, but he didn’t turn up, sources alleged.

Sethi, a 1995-batch IAS officer, claimed he has no links with Bridge and Roof Company (India) Limited, a central public sector undertaking, or its group general manager, Chanchal Mukherjee, who was arrested in the bribery case last year.

On December 7, the agency arrested Mukherjee while allegedly accepting a bribe from Santosh Moharana, director of Bhubaneswar-based Penta A Studio Private Ltd, and middleman Debadutta Mohapatra. Another person was also arrested in this connection.

After the trio’s arrest, the CBI on December 10 sent a notice to Sethi to appear before it. “It is learnt that you are acquainted with some important and relevant facts and circumstances of the case, which are required to be ascertained from you,” the CBI letter to Sethi said.

His drivers were also interrogated by the agency last year.