New Delhi, May 3: The CBI today arrested a managing director of the Essar Group, Pradip Mittal, and a top income tax official in connection with a bribery case of nearly Rs 2 crore.

Essar accounts officer Vipin Bajpai and three others were also held in the case that involved alleged payments to B.B. Rajendra Prasad, Mumbai commissioner of income tax (appeals), for an order favouring a trust in which the company is the main trustee, CBI spokesperson R.K Gaur said. The trust denied the allegations.

The others held were identified as Suresh Kumar Jain, a real estate agent, his relative Manish Jain and a chartered accountant, Shreyas Parikh, the agency said. Prasad and Jain were arrested from Visakhapatnam and the rest from Mumbai, sources said.

Prasad had allegedly asked for part of the money at his Visakhapatnam home where he was away on leave. "The CBI laid a trap and caught the commissioner receiving Rs 19.34 lakh from the real estate agent," Gaur said. Around Rs 1.5 crore had been recovered earlier and officials were looking for more, officials said.