ED deputy director arrested in Odisha by CBI on charges of bribery
remanded in 14-day judicial custody
New Delhi/Bhubaneswar, May 30 (PTI): The CBI has arrested Chintan Raghuvanshi, deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate in Odisha, for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 20 lakh from a businessman based in Bhubaneswar, officials said on Friday.
The 2013-batch Indian Revenue Service officer from the Customs and Indirect Tax stream had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 5 crore from businessman Ratikanta Rout for giving him relief in an ongoing ED investigation against him, according to a complaint received by the CBI, which is now a part of the FIR.
During negotiations, the officer allegedly agreed to reduce the amount to Rs 2 crore, with the condition that the first installment of Rs 50 lakh had to be paid to the middleman by Thursday evening, the complaint said.
A CBI team set a trap in Bhubaneswar on Thursday after receiving a complaint from Rout about the bribe payment. When Rout paid Rs 20 lakh, of the total Rs 50 lakh, to the middleman, the team swung into action and arrested the middleman.
Later, Raghuvanshi was also arrested following extensive questioning and produced before a special CBI court on Friday, the officials said.
The ED officer's lawyer, Siddhant Mohanty, said in Bhubaneswar that a special CBI court has remanded Raghuvanshi in judicial custody for 14 days.
"However, his bail petition has not been rejected. It will be heard on June 4," Mohanty said.
Raghuvanshi had allegedly demanded the bribe to settle an ongoing ED investigation against Rout. The ED had registered a case in 2020 against Rout, who has a stone crusher and mining business in Dhenkanal.
The ED had searched his premises in January, followed by a summons to appear for questioning in March, the officials said.
When Rout appeared for questioning at the ED office in Bhubaneswar, Raghuvanshi allegedly called him to his chamber and asked him to meet one Bhaghti to get "relief" in the case, the businessman alleged in the complaint given to the CBI.
Rout had alleged that since then, Bhaghti had been in contact with him, pressuring him over FaceTime to pay Raghuvanshi to settle the matter, according to the FIR.
Bhaghti allegedly met Rout on May 27, where he said that Raghuvanshi had demanded Rs 5 crore for "not attaching his hospital, not arresting him, and settling his case", the FIR said.
Rout expressed his inability to arrange such a large sum, and then Bhagti made him speak to Raghuvanshi, who reduced the demand to Rs 2 crore, with the first installment of Rs 50 lakh to be paid on Thursday evening, it said.
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Takeaways from Trump-Putin meeting: No agreement, no questions but lots of pomp
Washington (AP): The much-anticipated summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin began with a warm welcome and a flyover by screaming jets at a US military base in Alaska but ended with a thud Friday after they conceded that they had failed to reach any agreements on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
After about 2 1/2 hours of talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the two men appeared before reporters for what had been billed as a joint news conference — but they took no questions.
“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to, there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn't get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”
Putin, welcomed into the US after being shunned by Western allies since early 2022 for ordering the invasion of Ukraine, thanked Trump for hosting the meeting and suggested with a chuckle that the next time the two sit down it could be in Moscow.
Here are key takeaways from the summit:
A warm welcome underscoring the friendly Trump-Putin relationship
Putin got a red carpet welcome and even rode in Trump's presidential limousine from the tarmac to the summit venue. There, the pair were joined by two of their top aides: Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff for Trump and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and national security adviser Yuri Ushakov for Putin.
Putin, who spoke first after the meeting concluded, lauded the historical relationship between the United States, Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalling joint missions conducted by the two countries during World War II.
He said the US and Russia share values, a standard talking point for Russian officials when trying to woo Trump and his aides. Putin also noted that Trump has frequently said the Ukraine war wouldn't have happened had he won the 2020 election.
"I think that would have been the case," the Russian leader said, a comment sure to please Trump.
However, there is no indication and no way to prove that Moscow would have acted differently toward Ukraine had Democrat Joe Biden not been elected.
Trump touts progress but concedes there was no deal
Trump had gone into the meeting hoping to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine — or at least a commitment from Russia to enter into negotiations to reach one.
Instead, Trump conceded that “we haven't quite got there” and said he would be conferring with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO leaders about next steps.
Trump said he and Putin had made some significant progress toward the goal of ending the conflict but gave no details on what that entailed and had to acknowledge that they had been unable to bridge substantial gaps.
“I believe we had a very productive meeting,” Trump said. “We haven't quite got there, but we've made some headway. So, there's no deal until there's a deal.”
In a subsequent conversation with Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel, Trump again offered no details on his discussions with Putin.
With diplomatic progress creeping along, time is on Putin's side
Amid drawn-out diplomatic moves to end the war, time is appears to be on Putin's side. That gives a leg up to Russian forces, who have used their larger numbers to slowly grind down defences in eastern Ukraine 3 1/2 years into the conflict.
Putin got a pleasant reception from the leader of the free world on US soil and walked away hours later without either providing details on what they discussed, whether a ceasefire was any closer to reality or what the next steps would be.
Putin praised Trump for the “friendly” tone of the talks — Trump said nothing publicly about the killing of Ukrainian civilians in Moscow's attacks — and for “understanding that Russia has its own national interests.”
Putin said Moscow and Washington should “turn the page,” with relations having sunk to the lowest point since the Cold War.
Putin appearing in the US for the first time in 10 years was celebrated as a sign that Moscow was no longer a pariah on the global stage. In a social media post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told followers that the Western press would be on the verge of “losing their minds.”
“For three years, they talked about Russia's isolation, and today they saw the red carpet being rolled out to greet the Russian president in the United States,” she said.
There were no details and no questions
Both men said the talks were “productive” but the lack of any announcement of solid achievements was revealing.
The news conference ended up being less than 15 minutes of rather standard diplomatic comments — and gave no indication that any concrete results were achieved — and offered little departure from their previous comments on the war in Ukraine.
Trump has made it a feature of his second term to parry questions from reporters in front of world leaders, but in the clearest sign of his disappointment, the president abruptly cut short his plans to take questions.
Trump had gone into the summit saying here was a 25 per cent chance that the summit would fail and that it was meant to be a “feel-out meeting,” but he had also floated the idea of bringing Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting if things went well. It's unclear what comes next.
