CBI raids SAI office, officials taken into custody

As per PTI sources, there have irregularities going on in SAI for more than one year and with alleged bills worth of Rs 19 lakh still waiting to be cleared by the officials. The alleged people were demanding bribe of three per cent to clear the pending bills, as per sources. 

The probe agency has taken the director S K Sharma, Junior Accounts Officer Harinder Prasad, Supervisor Lalit Jolly and UDC V K Sharma along with private contractor Mandeep Ahuja and his employee Yunus into custody on Thursday after the CBI officials searched the office at the Lodhi Road locality in the national capital. 

According to the information, the Director General of SAI Neelam Kapur had taken up the matter with the probe agency after which the CBI officials reached the SAI headquarters at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in the evening and sealed the entire premises. 

''The matter came to light before SAI DG 6 months back after which she informed the sports minister. On the insistence of the minister the DG wrote to the CBI,'' a source told PTI. 

Meanwhile, Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has opened up in the matter saying that they had prior information regarding the irregularities in the SAI office and had faith in CBI investigation to address the real problem. 

"A few months back, we got information that a few officials of sports department have been involved in corruption. We could have transferred them but that wouldn't have been a solution to the problem but only a cover up," Rathore said on Twitter. 

"As the public expects from our government, we entrusted the duty of investigation to the agencies. After few months of investigation, on Thursday, they raided SAI and arrested a few officials. We expect the (CBI) agency to take the investigation to the right conclusion and our endeavour is to put an end to any corruption existing in sport. We want to free sport from any sort of corruption. for that matter any ministry and any sort of corruption. We are committing to working and making our system transparent and fair," the sports minister further added.