Chennai: CBI registers FIR against three in alleged Rs 9 lakh bribery case

CHENNAI: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of CBI, Chennai, has registered a case against three persons, including two officials of the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), for allegedly demanding and accepting a Rs 9 lakh bribe in connection with a property valuation report, while they were working in income tax department in the year 2023.

According to the FIR registered on August 24, 2026, Sanjay Bapurao Chinchghare, who was then working as a District Valuation Officer in the Income Tax Department’s Valuation Cell in Chennai and is now a Superintending Engineer/Planning with the CPWD, and D. Manjunathan, then an Assistant Valuation Officer-I in the same cell and now an Assistant Engineer with the CPWD, allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with Subhash Chander Rana, partner of AKS Engineering Company.

The FIR states that the officials allegedly demanded Rs 9 lakh from Rana for issuing a favourable valuation report for his company’s property at Ambattur Industrial Estate. The property valuation had been referred to the Income Tax Valuation Cell by the National Faceless Assessment Centre in New Delhi.

According to the FIR, Rana met Chinchghare at his Chennai residence on January 4, 2023, in connection with the pending valuation report. Chinchghare allegedly demanded Rs 9 lakh in the presence of Manjunathan and instructed Rana to pay the amount to Manjunathan.

Later that evening, Manjunathan allegedly received Rs 9 lakh from Rana at a hotel in Ashok Nagar in return for a favourable preliminary valuation report.

The ACB has booked the accused under Sections 7, 7A, 8 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, as amended in 2018, read with Section 120B of the IPC. The FIR states that the case has been taken up for investigation.