Railway officers arrested, CBI lens on catering major Comesum

A major player in Railway catering service, Comesum group, has come under scanner of CBI which has arrested two senior rail officials and a businessman in connection with alleged corruption in supply of packaged drinking water in Rajdhani and other superfast trains.

Sandeep Silas, a 1984-batch Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officer, and MS Chalia of 1987 batch were taken into custody late last night along with Sharan Bihari Agrawal, owner of R K Associates, in connection with the scam, CBI sources said today.

The trio were produced in the court today which has sent them to one day police custody.

CBI spokesperson said they would be produced in Patiala House court tomorrow again.
Both officers were immediately suspended after CBI carried out searches at their residences on October 17.

CBI sources claimed CEO of RK Associates Rajiv Mittal's residence was searched yesterday as part of its probe from where cash worth Rs 52 lakh was recovered while another Rs one crore was recovered from Sagar Residency in Ashram here.

The recovery has taken the total cash to be around Rs 28 crore during its searches.
Mittal is one of the Directors of the the Comesum Group, the web site of which states that "Comesum Food Plaza is a brainchild of RK Associates".

"This has been primarily possible only when Rahul Agrawal, Abhishek Agrawal and a cousin Rajiv Mittal set up Comesum," it says.

Repeated calls to Comesum on the numbers given on its web site did not elicit any response. The queries sent through email also remained unasnwered.

CBI sources said although the company is not named as accused in the FIR, it will be probed for association with accused companies besides flow of funds.
The role of Agrawals in Comesum will also be probed further.