New Delhi, May 22 (UNI) A CBI court today refused to accept a request to close a more than three-year-old case against five Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials for allegedly taking bribe from a builder and allowing him to construct illegally.

Special Judge Vinod Goyal rejected the closure report filed by Investigating Officer sub-inspector H K Lal passing strictures against him for showing 'favour' to the accused MCD officials and directed the investigating agency to depute a senior officer to throughly re-probe the matter.

The CBI had registered a case against the MCD Executive Engineer, an Assistant Engineer, two Junior Engineers and an office-incharge in February 2003. It was alleged that the Executive Engineer took a bribe of Rs 20 lakh and allowed builder Sanjay Rai to construct an illegal third floor in Raja Garden area of West Delhi and also to cover 100 per cent of the plot in violation of the statutary Floor Area Ratio.

However, the IO gave clean chit to the accused officials saying all works carried out were in order and no case was made out.

The judge noted that the IO had even 'favoured' the accused while ignoring vital evidence against them, including the 'Building Watch Register'.

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