New Delhi:
CBI has recovered fake currency of Rs 4 lakh among Rs 20 crore recovered from Railway caterers during its searches in connection with alleged corruption in the supply of Rail Neer on premium trains.
Sources said during the searches, the agency stumbled upon cash which was so huge that it took 15 hours of counting the currency with the help of three counting machines and five officials of the agency.
They said cash recovery of Rs 20 crore was made from the residence of Shyam Bihari Agrawal, his sons Abhishek Agrawal and Rahul Agarwal who own RK Associates and Brandavan Food Product.
Mr Agrawal, who hails from Durg in Chhattisgarh, started as a small time caterer somewhere in 2004 and slowly increased the business taking the turnover of his company to around Rs 500 crore catering in almost all the Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains, the sources said.
They said cash of Rs 1 crore was recovered from the office of his firms while Rs 52 lakh was recovered from the residence of his Chief Executive Officer. The sources said CBI may slap charges of fake currency on Mr Agrawal.
They said Mr Agrawal, who was allegedly carrying on with fraud of selling cheap water in place of Rail Neer since 2012 in the trains, had purchased lot of land in the national capital region and owns luxury hotels in Noida, Ghaziabad, Navi Mumbai, Raipur.
They said he used his connections with the Railway officials to allegedly grab lucrative contracts of restaurants on Railway premises.
The agency had yesterday carried out searches at 13 locations in NCR which included premises of two Chief
Commercial Managers of Railways and private companies which included the two firms run by Mr Agrawal.
The agency had recovered Rs 27 crore from the companies of Mr Agrawal.