The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested George Kuruvilla, former Chairman and Managing Director of Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), and W.B. Prasad, former General Manager of BECIL, in a case involving an alleged bribe of ₹3 crore and the fraudulent disbursal of a loan from BECIL to a Mumbai-based firm.

According to CBI sources, Kuruvilla and Prasad were produced before the Special CBI Court in Mumbai, which granted police custody of the arrested public servants for four days, until April 19, 2025.

“CBI had earlier arrested another accused, Prateek Kanakia, CEO of M/s TGBL, on March 24, 2025. He was remanded to police custody until April 1, 2025, and has since been in judicial custody. In light of the arrest of the public servants, a fresh remand was sought for Kanakia. The Special CBI Court, Mumbai, granted his further police custody for three days on April 17, 2025, until April 19, 2025,” a CBI official said.

The CBI had earlier registered a case on September 3, 2024, against George Kuruvilla (then CMD, BECIL), W.B. Prasad (GM, BECIL), Ashish Pratap Singh (then Legal Advisor, BECIL), Sudhir Chauhan (then Consultant, BECIL), Prateek Kanakia (CEO and Founder of M/s TGBL, Mumbai), M/s TGBL, and unknown others under various sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

"Investigation so far has revealed that, during 2022, the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy. In furtherance of this conspiracy, the CMD of BECIL sanctioned and facilitated the disbursal of a ₹50 crore venture loan to M/s TGBL and, in return, received an undue advantage of ₹3 crore from co-accused Prateek Kanakia. The probe also revealed that M/s TGBL (through co-accused Kanakia) had submitted a fake Performance Bank Guarantee (PBG) of ₹25 crore. Further, the loan amount was neither used for its intended purpose nor repaid to BECIL. Due to the omissions and commissions of the arrested accused, BECIL incurred a wrongful loss of ₹58 crore,” the CBI official added.