Mumbai, Jun 9 (PTI) A special court here on Monday gave one-day custody of the deputy registrar of the Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to the CBI for further probe in a bribery case.

Deputy Registrar Charan Pratap Singh and Karsan Ganesh Ahir, who was allegedly receiving the bribe amount on behalf of the former, were held by the Central Bureau of Investigation on May 29.

They were produced in a special CBI court on the same day but the probe agency's remand plea was rejected on the ground that the bribe amount has been recovered.

The agency then moved a fresh plea for Singh's remand, saying he needs to be interrogated about alleged involvement of other senior NCLT officials. The CBI submitted that it had recorded the statements of witnesses during the course of investigation.

The CBI told court it wanted to further interrogate the accused in line with the statements of the witnesses.

Considering the facts discovered during the investigation, the court said there are sufficient grounds to remand Singh to CBI custody for a period of one day. It allowed the CBI to take custody of Singh on Tuesday and produce him before the court the following day.

The agency registered the case on May 14 against Singh on the complaint from a hotel owner who was having an ownership dispute with his brothers. The ownership dispute matter was filed before the NCLT Mumbai Court number IV on November 2, 2020, and has been pending since.

It has been alleged that on May 11, accused deputy registrar demanded an undue advantage of Rs 3.50 lakh from complainant for helping him in the matter by using his contacts in NCLT, Mumbai, and getting the matter settled in his favour. Later, the accused agreed to accept Rs 3 lakh as bribe.

The central probe agency conducted a trap operation in which Ahir was caught red handed while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 3 lakh on behalf of accused deputy registrar Singh. PTI AVI BNM

Bribery investigation: one-day custody granted for interrogation of NCLT deputy registrar to probe alleged wider involvement. A bribery investigation concerns a tribunal deputy registrar arrested after a trap in which an intermediary accepted a bribe on his behalf; the investigative agency, having recorded witness statements suggesting possible involvement of other senior officials, obtained a court order for a one-day custodial remand to permit further interrogation and ordered production of the accused the following day.