The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday arrested two owners of Micromax mobiles for allegedly bribing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials for a banquet hall in the city.
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Micromax promoter Rajesh Aggarwal was allegedly caught red-handed offering a bribe of Rs 30 lakh. Two MCD officials were also arrested from Timarpur area in north Delhi, the police said.
Following the raid, the investigating agency also carried out searches at the offices and homes of various MCD officials. According to reports, Rs. 40 lakh was recovered from one of the official's home.
CBI sources said they got a tip-off that Mr Aggarwal had entered a deal with the engineers of the Delhi civic body to get clearance for construction of a banquet hall in the Wazirpur area in exchange of bribe of Rs. 50 lakh. The price was later negotiated to Rs. 30 lakh, they said. Officials of the Micromax cellphone company were not immediately available for comment.
Mr Aggarwal started Micromax as an IT software company in 2000. Micromax entered the highly competitive mobile handset market in 2008 and currently markets more than 60 handset models. The company also manufactures data cards, tablets and LED televisions.
Despite being a late entrant, Micromax became one of the largest Indian domestic mobile handsets company by 2010. Micromax has a 24% market share in the smartphone segment in India as per the CMR report for April 2013.
Most of the Micromax handsets are manufactured in China, Taiwan and South Korea.
Micromax is the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the World according to Global Handset Vendor Market share report from Strategy Analytics.
Micromax in July 2011 withdrew its Rs 466 crore initial public offering due to volatile market conditions.
The company had planned to use part of the proceeds to set up a handsets factory in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh.
Micromax is based out of Gurgaon in Haryana. It has 23 domestic offices across the country and international offices in Hong Kong and Dubai. The company has around 1900 employees currently.
