The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a deputy director-level officer of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office posted in Chennai, along with a Delhi-based advocate and the advocate’s relative, for allegedly demanding a ₹1 crore bribe in connection with the DHFL scam investigation.
The arrested officer has been identified as Harish Kumar Tanwar, a 2017-batch Indian Revenue Service officer currently serving as deputy director of the SFIO in Chennai. The other accused are advocate Bharat Sharma of New Delhi and Aryan Sharma, a relative of the advocate, according to the case details reported by The Times of India.
The case followed a written complaint submitted to the CBI by Gopal Shivram Dalvi on October 12. The complaint alleged that Tanwar, Sharma and others demanded ₹1 crore by threatening to arrest and prosecute Dalvi in relation to an investigation into the DHFL scam being conducted by the Chennai office of the SFIO.
According to the report, the CBI verified the complaint, registered a case the following day and laid a trap. The agency arrested the three accused after Sharma allegedly received ₹20 lakh from Dalvi on behalf of the SFIO officer. The ₹20 lakh was described as part of the alleged ₹1 crore demand.
The SFIO is an investigative office under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs that handles complex corporate fraud cases. Its Chennai office was involved in the DHFL-related investigation referred to in the complaint. The arrests therefore place the conduct of an official investigation under scrutiny while the CBI proceeds with its own anti-corruption case.
The CBI also conducted searches at the premises of Tanwar and Sharma. The searches reportedly resulted in the recovery of material that the agency described as incriminating and related to the case. The report did not provide details of the material recovered.
The case has been registered under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita concerning criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The allegations remain subject to investigation and judicial proceedings; the arrests and the registration of the case do not by themselves establish guilt.
The investigation has been assigned to Shakti Kumar, an inspector with the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Branch-III in New Delhi. Further action will depend on the agency’s investigation and the proceedings before the court.
