New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case against five accused, including passport assistants and a senior passport assistant posted at the Regional Passport Office in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad and a private person, based on allegations of bribery in lieu of resolving the issues of passport applications pending at RPO Ghaziabad office.

Taking to X, the CBI wrote, “The CBI registers a case against five accused, including officials of regional passport office on allegations of taking bribes through payment-gateways and conducts searches.” The Central probe agency claimed that the accused allegedly hatched a conspiracy and indulged in malpractices by way of obtaining undue pecuniary advantage and bribe in lieu of resolving the issues of passport applicants. The accused have been identified as Ravi Kishan, Chandrakant, Pawan Kumar alias Pawan Sharma, Jandail Singh and Farhan Gaur (private person)," the CBI said.

The accused private person used to contact the dealing hands concerned, all officials working at the Regional Passport Office in Ghaziabad, for sending police verification reports, scanning of documents, printing of passports and dispatch of passport of the passport applicants whose passport applications were pending. Instead of that, he allegedly paid illegal gratification to the accused passport officials using different payment gateways, CBI officials claimed in a communiqué.

It was further alleged that from June 14, 2022, to July 2, 2023, the accused private person obtained an undue advantage of Rs 1,57,600 instead of resolving the issues of passport applicants. The alleged amount, so obtained, was transferred by him through UPI into Bank Wallets and bank accounts of accused passport officials, their family members, friends and known persons through various transactions, the Central probe agency claimed. Searches were being conducted on the premises of the accused persons at Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad. Further investigation is underway.