New Delhi, July 2
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered 12 cases against 14 officials from passport office in Mumbai for indulging in collusive corruption with agents and touts.
The agency has booked Passport Assistants/Sr. Passport Assistants posted at Passport Sews Kendras(PSKs) of Lower Parel and Malad, and eighteen (18) passport facilitation agents/touts on allegations that officials posted at PSK, Lower Parel, Mumbai and PSK Malad, Mumbai working under Regional Passport Office (RPO) Mumbai, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA.
The CBI stated that it was alleged that these officers were in regular contact with passport facilitation agents and conspiring with them to obtain undue advantage in lieu of issuance of passport based on inadequate/incomplete documents or by manipulating the personal particulars of passport applicants.
In June this year, Joint Surprise Checks (JSC) were conducted at Parel and Malad offices along with the Vigilance Officers of the Passport Seva Programme (PSP) Division, Ministry of External Affairs and officers of RPO Mumbai. During Joint Surprise Check (JSC), the office desks and mobile phones of the suspect officers were analyzed jointly by CBI team and Vigilance Officers of PSP, Division, MEA. The analysis of documents, social media chats and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ID activities of suspect public servants revealed various suspicious transactions by some officials of PSKs indicating demand and acceptance of undue advantage through the passport facilitation agents for issuance of passports as well as to get passports issued based on inadequate/fake/forged documents.
The suspect officers of PSKs, in connivance with various passport facilitation touts were allegedly receiving huge monetary undue advantages directly in their own bank accounts or in the bank accounts of their family members from the passport facilitation agents to the tune of several lakhs of rupees, CBI added.
The federal probe agency also conducted searches at about 33 locations of accused public servants and accused private persons situated at Mumbai and Nashik. This led to recovery of several incriminating documents / digital evidence pertaining to passport documents, etc.
