Bhagalpur: The CBI, investigating the multi-crore Srijan scam, has summoned three former top-ranking district officials of Bhagalpur to its Delhi headquarters in relation to an FIR filed on the embezzlement of nearly Rs 115 crore from the district welfare office here.

On August 23, 2017, the district welfare department had lodged the second FIR here against Srijan's office-bearers, bankers and the erstwhile district welfare officer and nazir of the office for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 115 crore from the district welfare office's account. The three officials were members of the in-house teams of the district administration to conduct inquiries in the district welfare office after the FIR was registered with Kotwali police station, which the CBI later took up.

Then district magistrate (DM) Adesh Titarmare formed different in-house committees to probe into the irregularities in the government offices.

Senior additional district magistrate (ADM) Harishanker Prasad was the chairman of the committee, while district accounts officer Rajendra Kumar Chandravanshi was a member in the committee. The third was Apurva Kumar Madhukar, then district panchayati raj officer. Madhukar, who was also in-charge of the district welfare office after the arrest of the former district welfare officer Arun Kumar, registered the second FIR from the district welfare office.

The three officials are now posted in different parts of Bihar and are scheduled to present before the CBI headquarter in New Delhi on August 28, sources said.

The CBI sought other documents related to the second FIR from the district welfare office. The second FIR is related to the illegal transfer of government money from the office to Srijan between 2014 and 2016 during the tenure of Arun Kumar as district welfare officer.

Arun Kumar himself registered the first FIR over embezzlement of Rs 6 crore. But the SIT, which was assigned to conduct the investigation at that time, arrested Arun Kumar after founding his involvement in the scam. His wife, Indu Gupta, who too was involved in the scam, managed is still on the run.

"The officers have been asked to go to Delhi with all documents related to the second FIR. They had earlier requested the CBI to call us either at the CBI camp office in Sabour or in Patna but they refused and strictly asked us to be present in Delhi on August 28 with the documents," said a source in the district welfare department.

The sources added that the district welfare office had earlier requested the CBI to attach another scam of Rs 101 crore from the office by Srijan (which also detected by the accountant-general Patna's audit team) to any of the two FIRs.