CBI nabs Mumbai airport customs officer for graft

Mumbai, Aug 28 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation nabbed a customs officer at the Mumbai airport for demanding a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a complainant to revoke an export alert, an official said here on Wednesday.The accused, Subhash Shankar Jha, is working as Appraising Officer in the Duty Drawback Section at the Air Cargo Complex.According to the complainant, the Customs Department had put the Importer Exporter Codeof the complainant under "alert", due to which he was unable to export his consignment.When he approached Jha to revoke the alert, the latter took a bribe of Rs 5,000 from him on August 20 for issuing a One Time NOC, valid for 15 days to enable the complainant export within that period.The One Time NOC was issued on August 22, but two days later, Jha demanded another bribe of Rs 20,000 to permanently revoke the alert.After negotiations, the amount was reduced to Rs 10,000 which the complainant agreed to pay but also complained to the CBI. A trap was laid in which Jha was trapped red-handed while accepting the bribe amount from the complainant.Searches were also carried out at the premises of the accused and he was produced before a special CBI court later, said the official.
--IANS qn/vd