New Delhi: In a 2022 preparatory interview for the UPSC examination, Rahul Bansal was requested if he had ever paid a bribe and the way he felt about it. The IIT-BHU graduate went on to relate how upset he felt after he paid Rs 500 to a panchayat secretary for his brother’s delivery certificates.
4 years later, Rahul Bansal, now an IPS officer, faces allegations of demanding and accepting Rs 1 crore by hawala channels to settle a cybercrime case in Chhattisgarh’s Surguja district.
At present posted because the Metropolis SP in Ambikapur, the 2022-batch IPS officer has not commented on the allegations. ThePrint reached out to his lawyer Manish Tiwari, and he too refused to remark.
The distinction between Bansal’s remarks within the mock interview and the allegations in opposition to him has drawn vast consideration because the interview video is extensively circulated on social media.
A Delhi courtroom sought Motion Taken Reviews from the CBI Director and the Chhattisgarh DGP on the criticism. The stories have been submitted.
The case stems from an alleged share market fraud amounting to Rs 21.15 lakh.
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The case
Bansal’s title has come up in a case pertaining to a cybercrime investigation formally launched on 22 July final yr when the Surguja police registered an FIR based mostly on the criticism of an area investor, Ravi Moham Goswami.
In his police criticism, Goswami reported a lack of Rs 21.15 lakh by fraudulent on-line inventory funding functions like Cash Commerce 365 and Skytrade.
The preliminary FIR was registered underneath BNS sections 318(4) (dishonest and dishonestly inducing supply of property), 317(4) (coping with stolen property), 111 (organised crime), 238 (inflicting disappearance of proof or screening an offender) and three(5) (acts achieved by a number of individuals with frequent intention).
Sections of the Info Know-how Act, 2000 have been additionally invoked, together with Sections 21(1), 21(2) and 21(3) of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, 2019 (coping with offences associated to unauthorised deposit schemes), in opposition to unknown individuals.
Thus far, 23 folks have been arrested on this case throughout states and the police have filed 5 chargesheets, in keeping with Surguja Vary IG Deepak Jha.
Because the Cyber Police expanded their probe throughout a number of states, they started selecting up people based mostly on “disclosure statements” made by “sure co-accused individuals throughout investigation,” the investigation revealed.
As a part of the probe overseen by Bansal, police reached the doorsteps of two males—Garvit Jain (26), a resident of Delhi; and Anshul Ginotra, a resident of Rohtak in Haryana. They’ve been accused of working operations of platforms dealing in cryptocurrencies.
The 2 utilized for anticipatory bail at an area courtroom in Chhattisgarh, which rejected their pleas final month. The identical month, the excessive courtroom additionally junked their plea to quash the case probed by Bansal and his crew.
Among the many 23 arrested is Randhir Shah, a Delhi-based Chartered Accountant.
Sources within the Chhattisgarh Police mentioned Shah’s relative, Akash Kumar approached the CBI with a criticism that the Bansal allegedly hatched a legal conspiracy with sure different junior police officers, and demanded and accepted a “bribe of greater than Rs.1 crore by hawala channel” to settle the case.
Akash Kumar later moved a particular CBI courtroom in Delhi searching for registration of a legal case in opposition to Bansal and his subordinates in Chhattisgarh. He submitted earlier than the courtroom that he had initially approached the CBI with the criticism, however there was no response from the company.
Listening to his plea, the particular CBI courtroom on 1 July sought stories from the Chhattisgarh DGP and CBI Director.
“That is contemporary utility/criticism filed by applicant/complainant Akash Kumar containing allegations that respondent No.2/Rahul Bansal, an officer of Indian Police Service (IPS), hatched a legal conspiracy with sure different junior police official (respondent No.3 & 4) and appearing in furtherance of the mentioned conspiracy, these police officers demanded & accepted bribe of greater than Rs.1 crore by hawala channel…” the appliance mentioned.
Engineer, lawyer after which IPS officer
The plea searching for the registration of a case in opposition to Bansal and his subordinates stays pending earlier than the courtroom, whilst his feedback and background emerge as a focus.
Bansal, who’s initially from Jaipur, did his education from the Gyandeep Senior Secondary Faculty. He was additionally an NCC cadet.
In line with LinkedIn profile, he earned his Bachelor of Know-how in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Indian Institute of Know-how-Banaras Hindu College from July 2011 and Might 2015, with an 8.14 grade. He was a part of the IIT hockey crew.
He did his Bachelor of Science in Arithmetic from Indira Gandhi Nationwide Open College (IGNOU) in 2017 until 2019. He then accomplished two certificates programs — one in rural growth and one other in catastrophe administration. Bansal did his Bachelor of Legal guidelines (LLB) from the College of Rajasthan between 2020 and 2023.
For 3 months in 2014, he was an intern with Qualcomm, a-US based mostly semiconductor manufacturing firm.
He turned an affiliate engineer with the corporate in 2015. From February 2017 to December 2018, he labored as an earnings tax inspector with the the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Finance, in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal.
In August 2022, he cleared the Union Public Service Examination, securing rank 377. He joined the Indian Police Service (IPS), and was allotted the Chattisgarh cadre.
Bansal ‘paid a bribe’ in his personal village, ‘felt dangerous’
Amid the continued controversy, a 1.5-minute clip of Bansal’s mock UPSC interview has gone viral, by which the interviewer asks about his view on the “normal notion” that “civil providers are very inefficient and really corrupt”.
Bansal instructed the interviewer, “There are specific individuals who’re corrupt and inefficient, however the entire civil providers can’t be blamed for that.”
When requested if he confronted some state of affairs like this, Bansal instructed the interviewer, he did, whereas he needed to get the delivery certificates of his brother to get his passport.
“My brother was in school at IIT Kanpur, so he needed to go to the US to current a paper. At the moment, to get the passport, he needed to get a delivery certificates. I needed to get his delivery certificates,” he mentioned.
Bansal mentioned he went to the Panchayat Secretary, however he didn’t challenge the delivery certificates. For seven days, Bansal instructed the interviewer, he needed to go to completely different locations. He mentioned the time was of essence.
“So, I needed to pay some bribe to the panchayat secretary, as a result of the time interval was very much less. And, he was reluctant to organize that certificates.”
As quickly as he paid Rs 500, the panchayat secretary agreed to challenge the certificates, he instructed the interview.
When the interviewer requested him how he felt paying a bribe in his personal village, Bansal mentioned, “very dangerous”. “It is vitally disappointing {that a} civil servant, a public servant, is doing such work.”
The interviewer then requested him if he thought police reforms are important “ all these incidents”, Bansal mentioned, “I imagine police reforms are important.”
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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