New Delhi: Another senior Indian Foreign Service officer, Madhup Mohta, has come under the CBI scanner for financial irregularities during his tenure in the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Mohta an IFS officer of the 1985 batch, who is at present Director of Foreign Service Institute, has been named by the CBI in its Preliminary Enquiry.
Also named in the same enquiry is the former Special Secretary in External Affairs Ministry Rakesh Kumar, an IFS officer of the 1972 batch, who is already involved in allegations of human trafficking.
The allegation against Mohta, who was the Deputy Director General in the ICCR till late last year, was that during his tenure as the head of the Publication Division in the ICCR, several norms had been violated in the appointment of printers for publishing the material of the ICCR.
The CBI had seized all records and was going through them besides checking the quotations of other printers who had submitted their bids.
The agency reported that the Deputy Director General had conspired with the then Director General Rakesh Kumar and had favoured one particular printer who happened to be a relative.
Mohta has denied any role in these allegations terming them baseless. He has also expressed his willingness to cooperate with the CBI.
The CBI said this had caused huge losses to the exchequer, adding that Kumar's role was also being probed in this case for his failure to supervise.
After registering the case against Kumar, the Ministry of External Affairs had written to the CBI enquiring whether Mohta had been given a clean chit.
The agency had responded saying that the case of financial irregularities was still under investigation.
Meanwhile, in the human trafficking case, sources said the CBI was also taking the help of financial experts who were going through a bunch of documents seized from the ICCR during its raids on March 29 at various places in connection with the human trafficking case.
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